Gainako received an email from a member of the Balafong group – the young Gambian Writers’ association claiming that the new Secretary General Momodou Sabally has ordered the Balafong group to cease operations with immediate effect. The source detailed Mr. Sabally’s recent hostile action towards the young writers’ publication who operate an online website and a face book page to encourage young Gambians into the arts of writing and entertainment. At the time of going to press Gainako made numerous attempt to independently verify to claim but was unsuccessful in reaching anybody close to Mr. Sabally. As expected it is not surprising that Sabally has shut down all communication with outside groups since he became Secretary General and the errand boy for President Jammeh… Below is the detail report as emailed over to the editor account. Gainako will futher attempt to verify the situation but as at now both the website and the facebook page are still in operation… Abraham Lincoln once said’ ’nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.’’ Hello Sir, my heart bleeds with sorrow and disappointment as I quickly smuggle this email to you out of the office. It’s with utter sadness to let you and the rest of the Gambians in and out of the country know that Momodou Sabally aka Gambia’s Pen, the former Director of Budget at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, and now the new secretary general and head of the Civil Service, and the minister of Presidential Affairs has ordered every activity of Balafong.com and the facebook group, a center for peer-writing and sharing of quality literary materials of all types from an inspiring group of Gambian writers and performers to a complete STOP with immediate effect. Mr Momodou Sabally earlier this week not only summoned Latir Carr the co-founder of Balafong and his PARENTS to his new home, but make them be stripped off of their mobile phones, searched individually before letting them in his house to inform Latirr in the presence of his parents that every activity of Balafong from the west site, Facebook group, Black Magique and Word of Mouth events should come to a complete STOP because the president of the republic of the Gambia Sheikh Professor,Dr Yaya Jammeh is apparently not happy with the group. It is quite surprising and confusing to us all because we do not see any reason why the president or anyone in the position of power will order banning of a group that strictly prohibit any partisan political discussion on our website or the facebook group. The only thing we are doing is to share a platform for Gambians all over the world to share quality literature materials, showcase young talents in spoken words, music and also to encourage a healthy debate and discussions on our facebook page. We never had anything to do with politics or threaten national security whatsoever that should call for our banning by the president. We are only committed and dedicated young Gambians with passion for writing and performing arts with strong believe that by organizing events and discussions can only help to promote writing and reading in young people and also educate Gambian youths in the process in the form of entertainment. We sincerely believe that the president doesn’t and wouldn’t order the banning of Bafafong for no reason. And also strongly believe that Sabally himself is taking things into his own hands by trying to stop us operating using the president’s name because of a personal grievance he is harboring against the group. If I may take you down memory lane. Shortly before Sabally’s new appoint as the secretary general, head of the civil servant and the presidential affairs. He wrote an article on Daily Observer on Gambian girls which some of the readers found very offensive because of the confusing and sexist nature of the article. Some people mostly women responded by challenging and critiquing the publication. Obviously Balafong.com was the only platform for them to air out their opinions and disagreement with him. This did not go down well with Sabally. Not only did he bitterly ranted about it all on his facebook wall, but also ended up leaving the group and stopped attending all our events. This was kind of a lost to everyone for the fact that he used to attend and perform at our events with his wife very actively. And also if the president actually wanted to stop our activities, why will he summoned Latir Carr and his respected innocent parents to Sabally’s new home in order to break the news to him? We feel he did this to intimidate, pressurize and frighten Latir and his parents in order to quickly dissolve us as a sort of revenge on his critics on the article. He even threatened us by telling Lat and I quote’’I will deal with Balafong’’. We want to know what Sabally really meant by this personal statement if the order is actually from the president. To conclude, we are therefore asking Mr Sabally, secretary general and head of the Civil Service, and the minister of Presidential Affair, a very powerful man in the Gambia at the moment to strongly reconsider his action on very powerless group of young people with strong passion for reading, writing and performing arts. He is the self-acclaimed the mighty GAMBIA’S PEN THAT NEVER BENDS. He is meant to be the person to emulate, encourage and inspire young talented Gambian writers and performers. |