The recent interview granted to New African magazine by President Yahya Jammeh shows that he is one of those African leaders who continue to blame colonialism for the ineptitude of their governments, more than half a century since the attainment of independence. “Colonialism has brought us nothing but poverty, backwardness, exploitation and slavery….,” he told New African.
Of course President Jammeh is right that colonialism was preceded by some untold suffering for Africans, including the Atlantic Slave Trade an later the expropriation of their fertile lands by colonialists and their agents, but is it not time that we moved on rather than still brooding over the issue, especially when we have also seen more brutalities and other forms of injustices being committed against Africans by their own leaders in some instances? In fact in many instances, Africans have suffered much more under their own kith and kin than they had ever suffered in the hands of the colonialists.
Therefore, it is not only unfair but also hypocritical for African leaders to continue to heap all the blame for Africa’s ills on colonialism when most of them bear more responsibility for the present backwardness of the continent than the colonialists.
There are also some contradictions in the interview. For instance, while President Jammeh in justifying his decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth, said the Gambia is never again going to be part of any institution or organization that has a colonialist legacy, and yet his government continues to negotiate with the European Union (which comprises mainly of former colonial powers) for loans and development aid, as well as remaining a member of such institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, which still carry vestiges of colonialism.
There is absolutely no doubt that if Gambians were given the choice to vote in a referendum whether or not to remain in the Commonwealth, they would have overwhelmingly voted to remain rather than leave it. Therefore, it was yet another arbitrary decision made purely to satisfy President Jammeh’s own ego instead of it being in the interest of the overwhelming majority of Gambians.
There were also many distortions and ambiguities in some of President Jammeh’s answers. For instance, he said “in 400 years (of colonialism) the British built only one high school”. He also accused the post-independence government of former President Dawda Jawara of not building a single high school or hospital in its 30-year rule. Thus giving the impression that there was only one high school or hospital in the Gambia when he took power in 1994, which was definitely not the case.
“You know that 75% of rural Gambia is electrified, and 90% of rural Gambia has potable water. No, they will not want the world to hear about that,” he said. I wonder how many Gambians would accept that to be the reality, particularly when even the Greater Banjul Area has less than 50% reliable electricity supply, not to talk about the rest of the country. As regards water supply, the vast majority of rural Gambians still depend on hand-dug wells for their daily water needs. Therefore, that statement was no doubt meant for his foreign audience rather than the Gambians who are living the reality on a daily basis.
Regarding his vision for the Gambia in the next five years, President Jammeh promises to make it “one of the leading economies in the entire world, not only in Africa” which sounds more like a joke than even a wish, considering the deterioration in the quality of life of the majority of the people. It is also a fact that many of the social services during the Jawara era have all deteriorated. For instance, for the first time since the introduction of the ferry service on the Banjul – Barra crossing several decades ago, it recently went without a ferry for almost a week. We have also seen the disappearance of the bus services which used to cover the entire country, as well as many other social services which Gambians had taken for granted. That is certainly not an encouraging sign for a country aiming to become the leading economy of the world in the next five years.
One would also wonder how he can achieve his wish to see in the next five years that “only the most extreme medical conditions are sent abroad for treatment” when almost 20 years into his rule, virtually all the hospitals are empty of essential drugs and facilities.
President Jammeh once again repeated his usual distorted historical fact that the Gambia had been a much bigger country and that it was the British that sold it away leaving a tiny strip of land. May be someone needs to tell him that there was no country called the Gambia before the arrival of the British. Therefore, the Gambia as a country was the creation of the British and one would wonder where he got those 1578 maps which showed a bigger country called the Gambia before the arrival of the British.
As regards his still unexploited oil reserves, from which he said he is not going to accept 5% royalties from the petroleum companies, it would be interesting to see what use that oil will be to him or the Gambia if he would not accept such offer and he does not have the know-how to exploit it.
The interview has once again shown that while he is quite ready and willing to talk to the foreign media, but he would never still grant interview to the local media, apart from his two mouth pieces; Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS) and the Daily Observer newspaper. This is apparently because he does not have convincing answers to most of the questions they may ask him.