By Sidi Sanneh Hussein Tajudeen, the Lebanese businessman and Managing Director of Tajo Company Limited, who was declared persona non grata June 4th this year by the Gambian dictator has been “pardoned” and “therefore free to return to The Gambia as from the 25th October 2013.” Until his expulsion, Mr. Tajudeen was the closest and most important business partner of the dictator and the biggest importer of basic foodstuffs, including rice which is the staple food of The Gambia. The reasons given last June for his expulsion was vague but a French news agency report suggested that the businessman…
Author: Gainako
By Yero Jallow Flower gardens with floral whorls I saw thousands of bee flowers buzzing aloud Sucking nectar juices in turns With mouths all smelling scents And singing in chorus like the church choirs In uniform rhythms with flapping wings Pollination far and near I gazed, I smiled, and I laughed in hope Gambia in years to dream The “promised land” –we all love.
ON NOVEMBER 6, 2013 The Democratic Union Of Gambian Activists – DUGA will hold a protest at the Gambia Embassy, in continuation of the fight against the Jammeh dictatorship in the Gambia and to commemorate the November 1994 slaughter of dozens in an alleged coup attempt. We have entered a new era of struggle and will not relent in exposing the Jammeh regime’s barbaric actions and put an end to impunity in The Gambia. Please join us at:
The United States Embassy in Banjul has joined many organizations and citizens to congratulate Imam Baba Leigh on his Human Rights Defender Awards by the Pan African Human rights Defenders Network. Last week The Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network named Imam Baba Leigh as the first ever recipient of the African Human Rights Defenders’ Award “recognizing his work towards protecting and promoting human rights in West Africa.”
I have opined that elections in The Gambia for our struggle is a cul-de-sac. We cannot win an election against the other contestant (its now Yahya, it was Jawara and in the future could be anyone including the current crop of opposition politicians vying for the presidency) who is in charge of running such election. If by any chance you’re in doubt, please remember Abdoulaye Wade and the people of Senegal – he was going for the coronation of his son. There is nothing left here to argue. The efforts to organize and/or reorganize opposition parties for another election…
Jammeh has for too long taken the opposition for a ride. He was so confident that the opposition isn’t his match that he asserted that…”no vote will oust me out of power”. This was a hard slap on the face of the opposition by President Jammeh. On the one hand, it underscored his disregards of the opposition. It also spelt out clearly that he believed the opposition lacked the ability to challenge his government excesses and incapable of making him accountable. On the other hand, it also brought to light that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is not only…
In my humble opinion, the answer to that is of course yes because given the sequence of events of late, I can comfortably assert that it is in fact the very last card we were all waiting to see on the table because is all he got in store from day one and he will go down as the most tribal and brutal dictator in the History of our African Continent. Although it is a known fact that, whenever the going gets tougher and he feel his grip on power fading away or loosening, he always seems to find his…
By Edrisa Sanyang (Farang) Brother please allow me to state from the outset of this rejoinder that I am not holding brief for Fatou Jaw Manneh or anyone remotely associated with your response in prologue to your answer to the ‘Ten questions for PDOIS. I saw the need to rejoin the response to address the salient points raised in your response with regards to the demand by the Development Partners for Programs on the Way Forward for The Gambia post jammeh by the Collective Opposition (‘O.J. bearing witness’). The Only Conceivable way to come up with such a program…
By Baba Galleh Jallow The despot burns like fire His heart an angry helpless victim Not the object is burnt to death But the despot that feels the heat That makes him twist words into iron knots That makes him cut his nose To spite histwisted face!
By Sidi Sanneh Justice Emmanuel Nkea, a Cameroonian judge in the Special Criminal Court, is the new eye of the storm in the Gambian judiciary. He replaced former Justice Wowo, the Nigerian Chief Justice who was fired a month after taking office. Justice Wowo was the indisputable linchpin of the Yaya Jammeh rigged justice system prior to his elevation to the Supreme Court. He made sure jammeh enemies were firmly locked up at Mile II prisons. He was the ‘go to’ guy to a repressive regime that viewed the judiciary as an indispensable tool in maintaining the dictatorship in…