By D. A. Jawo
The conviction and imprisonment of three prominent former officials of the regime of President Yahya Jammeh has heightened the debate about the comportment of those in positions of authority, particularly since the advent of the Jammeh regime. While no one should rejoice over the conviction and jailing of the former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lamin Jobarteh, the former Secretary General, Head of the Civil Service and Minister of Presidential Affairs, Dr. Njogu Bah and the former Solicitor General and Legal Secretary, Pa Harry Jammeh, but their arrogance and general comportment during their tenure in office was quite a cause for concern.
In the case of Dr. Njogu Bah, for instance, he was known to be a close confidant of President Jammeh and he seems to have been using such a position to display arrogance and indifference to the plight of the general population. We can all recall his very comportment while addressing Imam Baba Leigh when he was “pardoned” by President Jammeh after his detention incommunicado for more than five months, as well as in various other occasions when he behaved in a manner incompatible with his position as a servant of the people.
We can also recall the pomposity often displayed by Lamin Jobarteh while he was Attorney General and Minister of Justice. As chief legal adviser to the government, he was expected to ensure that the rule of law was observed, but during his tenure, we were all witnesses to the frequent arbitrary arrests and lengthy detentions without trial as well as the arbitrary closure of media houses without any court order. Two cases in point had been the illegal detention of Imam Baba Leigh and the closure of Teranga FM radio station, Daily News and The Standard newspapers. We also saw how he vehemently defended the execution of the nine death row prisoners in August 2012 when it was quite obvious that the due process of law was not followed to the letter before the executions were carried out.
With regards to Pa Harry Jammeh, who as technical head of the Attorney General’s Chambers, he was also seen to be an accomplice to most of the illegal things going on at the judiciary.
While what has happened to Bah, Jobarteh and Jammeh should have been a good lesson to those still in positions of authority, but it is quite unfortunate that most Gambians do not seem to be learning any lessons from the experiences of their predecessors. A good example is the sort of arrogance being displayed by Njogu Bah’s immediate successor, Momodou Sabally, who also seems to be intoxicated with power and arrogance in his comportment.
The main problem with the Gambia’s present public servants is mainly due to the fact that they have allowed themselves to be controlled and manipulated by the politicians. Rather than restricting themselves to matters purely pertaining to their roles as public servants, they also openly display their support for the ruling APRC, apparently as a means of retaining their jobs, which is incompatible with the traditional role as public service employees whose duty is to serve the public in a non-partisan manner. A majority of them have completely thrown away their professionalism and are now behaving like puppets of the politicians. Their daily pre-occupation, it appears, is to please President Jammeh and his regime rather than serve the people whose taxes pay their wages and salaries. We have for instance seen how the present Secretary General and Head of the Civil Service, Momodou Sabally has gone even a step further by being also appointed Secretary General of the APRC. How on earth can the head of the civil service also be head of a political party and yet continue to perform his functions with professionalism and impartiality?
This sort of over-politicisation of the civil service was not even happening in the most autocratic states of Eastern Europe during the heydays of Communism let alone in this modern world when democracy and good governance are supposed to be order of the day.
Therefore, as long as those in positions of authority in the public service willingly allow themselves to be used by the politicians to oppress the very people they are supposed to serve, then the Gambia will no doubt continue to slide backwards as we have been witnessing in the past few years.