Author: Gainako

By Alkali Conteh. Growing up in Sabbach-Sanjal in the early 1960’s we witnessed the Gambia’s political climate beginning to shape up. As the powers in charge were determined to derail the efforts of the emerging political landscape to bring self rule to our nation, our people turned to the grassroots to fight for what was rightly ours. An unspoken phenomenon and less known connivance was the continuous attempt to disenfranchise all other citizens of the nation except for the colony to participate in elections. There was a well concocted scheme to exclude the rest of the country to participate…

Read More

By Momodou Ndow Hired fired hired fired and hired and fired again Arrested shackled paraded humiliated and jailed They return consciously seeking more thrill of shame Consumed by fear bearing gifts and praying for emperor How vain is blind and detrimental loyalty to the soul Conscience on vacation and decadence filling in Reckless hopeless miserable they’ve been dragged by the tail Bodies bruised battered and burning like a heatwave Aching souls and bleeding conscience dot the landscape Still they carry the burden under the heat and dust The wheels keep spinning leaving the audience violently dizzy Night…

Read More

Incumbent Council man Joe Clausius By Demba Baldeh It is official ~ Gambian born US naturalized citizen Samba Baldeh has won his election bit for a Council man seat in District 17 Madison Wisconsin.  Mr. Baldeh who contested against a four times incumbent Senior Council man Joe Clausius. Joe Clausius was first elected to the Madison City Council in 2007 and has since been reelected four consecutive times. Mr. Clausius has a distinguish record as a common council man and served on several committees. Samba Baldeh who was the fresh man challenger…

Read More

By Abdul Savage I submit it will be unjust, unfair and outright disrespectful to suggest any future Accountability exercise by the Gambian people as “witch-hunt”. ONE THING we all can agree on, whether you are a pro-Jammeh, pro-APRC or not is this: lots of wrongs have been done to the Gambian people for the last 20 plus years. There have been reports of torture, rape, killings, disappearances as well as other misuses and abuses of office and power, not to mention the millions of dollars that were secured and or borrowed in the name of the Gambian people, but…

Read More

By Mathew K Jallow It is a war that has sapped the wills of so many, and forced the escape, to freedom, of so many others. It is an undefined war that is also fought in the minds, and which has tested the will and challenged the depths of a nation’s commitment to itself. And it is a war without borders; but with frontiers that extend as far as the imagination. There is nothing a human-being cherishes more than liberty and the mental and intellectual freedom, which occupy its space. But the last two decades have been extremely challenging for…

Read More

By Baba G. Jallow The ongoing trial of Darsilami Sangajor Caliph Sheikh Sheriff Muhideen Hydara represents one of the most nauseating inflictions of unnecessary and totally unjust harassment of innocent persons by Yahya Jammeh’s Bully State. Over the past several months, the elderly man of God is being forced to attend a series of court proceedings to answer charges of disobeying Yahya Jammeh’s order that all Muslims perform the annual Eid-Ul Fitr prayers on a day he designated for the purpose. Historically, Muslim communities performed the prayers on the day they felt comfortable that they had seen the new…

Read More

AN OPEN LETTER TO FREEDOMNEWSPAPER.COM “Stereotypes on tribal identification and supremacy could trigger misunderstanding and distrust between people”. Lately, the undesirable postings by Mr. Bakary Bojang and “A Concerned Gambian” have prompted me to write an open letter to the publisher of Freedomnewspaper.com and his editorial board, and express my deep concerns and reservations about their focus and direction. As an educator, I hereby caution the publisher of Freedomnewspaper.com and his editorial board about these deleterious assertions and intolerances, and kindly appeal to them to use professional judgment and integrity before printing inaccurate and tribal allegations.  May I also…

Read More

I once believed that capital was another word for money, the accumulated wealth of a country or its people. Surely, I thought, wealth is determined by the money or property in one’s possession. Then I saw a Deutsche Bank advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that proclaimed: ‘Ideas are capital. The rest is just money.’ I was struck by the simplicity of such an eloquent and forceful idea. I started imagining what such power meant for Africa. The potential for progress and poverty alleviation in Africa relies on capital generated from the power within our minds, not from our…

Read More

1 April 2015, 22:51 UTC Death sentences imposed on soldiers accused of participating in December’s attempted coup d’état in Gambia are a cruel violation of the right to life and the right to a fair trial, Amnesty International said today. A military court handed down death sentences to three soldiers and sentences of life imprisonment to three others following a trial on Monday 30 March 2015. The trial was held in secret; media and independent observers were barred from observing the proceedings. Gambia’s justice system is deeply flawed and we have concerns about the fairness of the trial, given that…

Read More

  Abdou Kolly Gambia’s Finance Minister (Recycled to the position Numerous times) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has activated emergency financial assistance for the Gambia government. The prompt approval of the funding came amid fears that the Gambian economy is on the verge of collapse. For almost two decades the Gambia government under Yahya Jammeh has displayed financial indiscipline even at a time when the country is faced with the biggest threat of the alleged December coup failure as well as weak tourism industry in the face of political insecurity which is being disguise under the threat of…

Read More