By Mathew K Jallow
The story I wanted to write this week was going to be extremely flattering, yet not superfluous. It was going to be a glowing tribute to a great president, without being a canting expose of his largely still untold story. It was to be about Sir Dawda K Jawara’s extraordinary legacy and the myth and excruciatingly painful mendacity of Yahya Jammeh’s so-called achievements. It was to be the story that showcases the infinite admiration and celestial adulation of the three decades that made the Gambia, like its sister neighbor, the Republic of Senegal, stand out as a rare bastion of democracy and the rule of law, in an Africa wrecked by greed, corruption and death. For, ours was a country where refugees from conflict zones and political exiles from across the African continent found sanctuary away from the bloody wars of imperialism and colonialism. And it was going to be a bombastic eulogy to the brilliant foresight of the man who understood the existential threat dictatorship and political tyranny posed to the stability of the state and the cultural homogeneity of our Gambian society.
Unlike most of African countries then, ours was a country that provided safety and security to those touched by the cruel hands of tyranny and injustice; Liberia’s pre-eminent journalist, Kenneth Y Best; South-Africa’s distinguished development expert, Mosebyane Malatsi; Guinea-Bissau’s anti-colonial PIAGC fighters, among many others. Ours was a country where Liberia’s future president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, alienated from her chaotic homeland, also often visited her country-man, Kenneth Y Best to soak up in the political liberty Gambia was known for. And up until the outrageous dismantling of the legitimate Gambia government, ours was one of perhaps only half dozen countries on the African continent that at that point, still remained untouched by the intolerable ignorance of military rule and the reptilian brutality of the parade of intellectually stunted dictators who had dominated Africa’s political landscape. But, Gambia too changed when a group of unformed and barely literate high school graduates decided they wanted to run a country even before they could learnt how to run their own unaccomplished lives.
In the twenty years since Sir Dawda K Jawara was removed from power, Gambia has gone through the most grueling social, cultural, political, and economic transformation; a baptism of fire, which questions Yahya Jammeh’s sanity and plunged once peaceful Gambia into the dark side as a pariah nation under the painfully agonizing grip of an exceedingly egomaniacal regime. Today, the fall-out from twenty years of inhuman repression, endemic corruption and mindless barbarity easily fostered a climate for the complete disintegration of the social fabric our country, even if only for a while, as disgruntled Gambians seek to settle wounds of pain in an effort to once again find their rightful places in their estranged homeland. The cohesiveness and cultural homogeneity, which until recently distinguished the Gambia from the sanguinary nature of African politics, will be dealt a devastating blow in a post-Yahya Jammeh Gambia, as citizens seek to sort out the utter mess of the past two decades in the effort to bring Gambia back to life from the abyss of ruin and political destruction.
The story about the morally bankrupt buffoon who undeservedly, and by a sheer stroke of bad luck, ascended to the pinnacle of power in our country, is also about the total transformation of Gambia into a society forever changed by the disastrous collective moral deficit. Gambia has changed into a place where conscience and the moralizing power of religion have become valueless in the face of the struggle for survival. Under the Gambia’s dehumanizing power fear, self-preservation has become the most valuable currency, as all around Gambians are crushed by the vile, nauseating power of tyranny. It is compelling to revisit the past that made Yahya Jammeh his own worst enemy, and today, even if he wanted to, he cannot walk back the utter psychological destruction he has brought upon the collective mind of Gambian society. It seems everything Yahya Jammeh continues to do is satisfy his greed, and national issues take a back seat to his insatiable lust for power and material wealth.
Today, the Gambian civil service has become a bloated deadwood and the wealth of the entire nation rests in the hands of one person. Yahya Jammeh is the only one voice that matters in the country, and beneath the surface and under its veil of secrecy, social decadence has set in, in the Gambia as the morally and socially destructive vices of teenage prostitution, the scourge of drugs and drug abuse and criminality have brought devastation to a whole new generation of Gambians who have never experienced the infinite joy of living in a free society. The legendary psychopathological rants and raves that have turned Yahya Jammeh into a clown come from a heart of darkness that exemplifies the perniciousness of Frankenstein. In the past several years, Yahya Jammeh has tried to entice Diaspora Gambians to invest at home, even as he and his wife Zaineb Jammeh continue to squirrel out billions of the Gambia’s wealth into foreign bank accounts.
Yahya Jammeh also established witch-hunting Tax Commission, yet his vast business empire; in particular, his import and empire enterprise and all his other business interests are exempt from all tax liabilities. In addition, his Land Commission, another witch-hunting exercise, also made exceptions to his vast property and land holdings; much of it stolen from his Gambian victims, and Gambians who fall on hard times. The Gambia today is totally changed by the influx of foreigners who are buying up our lands and settling down to replace blue-blood Gambians fleeing to the safety of foreign lands. This is unsustainable tipping point will bring to a head the post-Yahya Jammeh fight for the reclamation of land lost to corruption and injustice as foreigners are forced to vacate lands to their rightful owners and to make way for the return of the true sons of the land. The heart of the problem now is to oust Yahya Jammeh by any means necessary, and doing so will put the military on confrontation course with foreign elements in the military loyal to the dying regime.
It is a paradox, albeit not an unfamiliar one, that our military, the single most embattled by the murderous Yahya Jammeh regime, for the deaths and disappearances of military comrades, are also his protectors, but how much longer they will continue to be murdered and fired from their positions and still remain Yahya Jammeh’s slaves, is the question on everyone’s mind. The fact that Yahya Jammeh is able to turn our own military; our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephew, neighbors and school mates against us, is itself quite frighteningly to say the least. One thing is certain, no condition every dictatorship has an end time and Yahya Jammeh’s end days are closing in on him; for like every murderous dictator before him, Yahya Jammeh too will live the day when the ground under his feet will give way to the violent retribution of the nation he reduced to fear and terror. As it stands, no prayer, no jalang sacrifices, and no devil worship will change Yahya Jammeh’s exit from power the exact same way, ex-President Nino Vierra did. One hint; it was ugly and gruesome.