By Adelaide Sosseh, Gender and Education Specialist
Abdoulie Saine National Assembly Member for Banjul Central has of recent made some very polemical statements which I find to be most distasteful, insensitive, mindless, irresponsible and mischievous. It should be noted that I have not referred to him as Honourable for he is not worthy of this title. Any person who is trying to undermine the healing and unifying process of The Gambia at its germane stage after 22 years of loss, pain and suffering is anything but honourable. Driven by selfish intentions and greed his evil plans broadcast from his hotel room in Abuja on the 14th February 2017 have been exposed and he is unmasked for all to see that he is a threat to the peace and stability of this country.
Bluffing the person to whom he is talking to that he is in hotel room in Abuja he wishes her and all APRC supporters in the Diaspora a Happy Valentine’s Day. He then goes on to lay out his plans for the comeback of the APRC. What was he doing in Abuja ? He and his peers were there in the Nigerian Capital and seat of ECOWAS to attend the First Extraordinary Session of the Fourth Legislature of the ECOWAS Parliament, from the 10th to the 15th February 2017. A resolution on the Gambian situation was to be passed at this session.
It is ironic that while Abdoulie Saine and his peers were plotting and scheming on how they could bring Yahya Jammeh back into the country, ECOWAS troops were on the ground in The Gambia. The country where they had moved in a few weeks earlier to facilitate the departure of Jammeh in a bid to restore democracy and maintain peace and stability in a country which was threatened by anarchy and conflict. ECOWAS had to use military intervention to ensure that the will of The Gambian people was respected and that the despot Yahya Jammeh, aided and abetted by the Gambian National Assembly left the shores of The Gambia to enable the new leadership govern the country according to the wish of the people of The Gambia.
Rejoinder
The only reason why you Abdoulie Saine was able to lounge about comfortably in a hotel room in Abuja was because you and your peers as ECOWAS parliamentarians were attending the First Extraordinary Session of the Fourth Legislative Session of the ECOWAS Parliament held in Abuja from the 10th-15th February 2017. Albeit this discussion could have been during your free time but it is my view that your time could have been better spent in discussing with your peers on how you could work in a bi-partisan manner with the Barrow administration to unify and heal the nation. A nation that was torn apart by loss of lifes, pain, suffering and a deliberate effort to bring about ethnic, religious or political conflict or all three combined.
Designating the state to be an Islamic state and the constant abuse and villification of Mandinka’s by Jammeh and finally his refusal to hand over the country after losing the 2016 elections and conceding defeat were potentially conflict igniting. The maturity of The Gambians prevented any such conflict from taking place. There were no outbursts of violence and the people continued to co-exist peacefully with each other in spite of Jammeh’s efforts to destabilise the nation to have a pretext to stay in power. People like you did not only support him in his various nefarious attempts to create instability but this was even more pronounced in the post election period when not only the country but the whole sub-region was put on a roller coaster ride by Jammeh’s refusal to hand over in a peaceful transition to the President elect Adama Barrow.
You plotted and schemed to no avail to let Jammeh stay in leadership. This is what you are up to agin in Abuja, plotting and scheming to derail the rebuilding of The Gambia a country that your party leader had effectively destroyed. You and your peers instead of acknowledging this fact, bowing out graciously, and above all apologising to the Gambian people for all the pain that had been inflicted on them during the 20 years of APRC are still up to games to perpetuate Jammeh’s leadership.
Having failed in your bid to use the National Assembly to pass bills perpetuating Jammeh in office you now take the opportunity of being in Abuja to strategise on an APRC renaissance. You could have developed some positivism and good will towards the new government by coming together to see how you could work with the current government to rebuild Gambia. Instead you are still harbouring negative feelings towards the government to whom you lost in a surprise win. Consequently you are devising plans to derail the reconciliation and rebuilding efforts. Negativity always leads to lost opportunities and this is exactly what happened when you were in Abuja. You could have taken the opportunity to learn from fellow ECOWAS Parliamentarians from countries that had experienced conflict and have now moved on and members of the ECOWAS Commission on to develop a blue print which you could present to your peers in The Gambia National Assembly on how to help rebuild the nation.
This is not your intention however. Your intention is to destabilize a government that has been lenient to you by allowing you to stay in office until the term expires in April in spite of the many wrongs that you have done in your efforts to perpetuate the former President’s stay in office. Without this leniency you would not have been attending the First Extraordinary Legislative Session of the ECOWAS Parliament. For if it were your Yahya Jammeh that was in power, your party would not only have been banned but all the NAMs who were party to this subterfuge would have been arrested and detained. While the whole world -ECOWAS, AU, the UN, bilateral and mulitilateral organisations- stood in solidarity and suuport with the people of The Gambia to see their will realised by seeing the person that they had elected to become the President of the country, you The Gambia National Assembly stood against the wishes of the people. The people who had elected you into office by doing everything it could to perpetuate Jammeh in office.
Unashamedly you passed a bill on the 17th January extending Yahya Jammeh’s term of office which was due to end on the 19th January 2017 following his defeat in elections by 90 days. You also approved his decision to declare a 90-day state of emergency. A decision that the National Assembly revoked on the 24th January 2O17 after Jammeh was forced to leave the country after ECOWAS forces started to move in following the decision that military intervention would be used if Jammeh did not hand over at the due date. You, Abdoulie Saine and your peers at the National Assembly passed a motion condemning what you called the «unlawful and malicious interference” of the African Union and neighbouring Senegal in The Gambia’s affairs». It was you Abdoulie Saine who seconded the motion but who also insisted that ECOWAS should facilitate the provision of Judges for the Supreme Court to resolve the matter through the court. Even at this stage you were still pointing fingers to the IEC as the supreme cause of the political turmoil in the country.
On the contrary however it was not the IEC but you and your peers who threw the country into turmoil by extending Jammeh’s term of office and approving the state of emergency. By so doing you created a false refugee situation as well as cost the country and the tour operators huge loss of revenue as thousands of tourists had to be repatriated out of the country. It is estimated that over forty five thousand Gambians fled the country into Senegal and other neighbouring countries fearing conflict. This caused untold suffering to the people who left their homes in a hurry and transport systems were overstretched leaving them stranded in border areas. It took a whole humanitarian effort to support the temporary refugees by providing them with food water and other logistics on their exit and re-entry trips. Yet you Abdoulie Saine still believe that no harm has been done to the people of The Gambia.
While you people have been let off the hook by President Barrow it is well known that the National Assembly took sides blatantly in an attempt to subvert the will of the people and to support Jammeh in his bid to violate the provisions of the Constitution of The Gambia. This is still fresh in the mind of the people as well as the fear they experienced when he refused to step down and hand over power to the President elect. Some of these people who ran for safety are people from Banjul Central, who voted you into office but who did not vote for Jammeh in the 2016 elections. So your electorate have already shifted position and will certainly not vote for you or any person you present in any guise as unlike you they had now seen the huge damage that Jammeh and their representatives had done to the country.
The first step in your plan for the revival of the APRC and Jammeh is to open a private radio station which will be called after your grandparent Alburay Njie. The reasoning behind this is so that the radio would not be politicized and that people would not associate it with the APRC. Now that the environment is enabling you hope to obtain a license and operate a radio station with ease, while the proprietors of Citizen FM, Radio 1 FM, SUD FM, Teranga Radio and Hilltop Radio stations were not given this right. They were subjected to all forms of harrassment to prevent them from operating their radios. Their radio stations were closed arbitarily. Baboucarr Gaye, George Christensen and Alagie Ceesay suffered untold physical and mental abuse. They were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, burnt from arson attacks on their premises and persons as well as physically and verbally abused.
What makes you Abdoulie Saine more eligible than the proprietors of these radios to operate a radio? The proprietors of these radio stations were professionals in their own rights and had the knowledge, skills, competence, experience and expertise to run a private station not only at the national level but with regional coverage. Recognising the importance of radio as a powerful communication tool to inform, educate and communicate with people on a timely basis so that they can make informed choices, Jammeh made sure he silenced those radio stations especially the ones that provided a platform for divergent views and voices. His heavy handed approach to silencing the radios resulted in many of their staff leaving the country to seek refugee in countries where they could practice their right to freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
Is this something that has been made up for in your statement you say that «have not seen or known», any of these things that have been said against Jammeh. That these are all propganda designed to tarnish his name. Of course you would speak like that for it is a form of self defense. You think that not knowing or seeing would save you and your fellow parliamentarians from the irreparable damage you caused to the 1997 Constitution of The Gambia. The numerous changes that were done to cover atrocities that were carried out by Jammeh. The passing of draconian media laws to muzzle the media and the most recent changes designed to delegitimise a legitimate election.
I take it also that you did not hear of the ambush and killing of the soldiers at Fajara Barracks in 1994 ; the murder of Koro Ceesay, Minister of Finance in 1995; the killing of the 14 students in 2000; the assassination of Deyda Hydara in 2004; the disappearance of Chief Ebrima Manneh in 2006; the arrests, imprisonment, torture and deportation of journalists; arrests, detentions, physical abuse of members of the opposition, religious leaders, human rights defenders and civil society organisations; the arbitary dismissal and terminations of public servants and the arrests and imprisonment of high level public servants; the purging of the military through false accusations of coup d’etats; the abductions of Mahawa Cham and Sol Ndow and Alhaji Mamut Ceesay and Ebou Jobe; the seizure of lands, estates and houses; the witch hunts ; the extra judicial killings and many other atrocities from 1994 to date.
Like the proverbial monkey you «hear no evil, see no evil, talk no evil. You assure ‘die hard APRC Members and Yahya Lovers’ that this is all proaganda designed to tarnish the image of a good man. «For a person cannot be good in the morning and be bad in the evening and vice versa». You claim that you have associated yourself with Jammeh because he is a good person who has only done good for the country. Abdoulie Saine, that is your opinion. One persons meat is another persons poison and I can assure you that Yahya Jammeh has done more harm than good to the people of The Gambia.
Now you have also seen the power of the media and know the influencing role that was played by the Gambian online radio in informing and educating the Gambian people about the atrocities that were taking place in the Gambia. This information helped them to get a balanced view of the situation in The Gambia for hitherto they were only given a one sided view of things. The Gambia through the eyes of Jammeh and through the mouthpieces of Jammeh, the GRTS and «Jammeh lovers and APRC diehards» as you describe them. Information empowers people to make decisions on matters that affect their lives. Empowered Gambians were able to make the decision that they no longer wanted Jammeh as their leader.
Now you also want to exploit this medium and use your own private radio station as a propganda tool for the APRC. Let us see how this plays out. Even if you are given a license to operate a private radio station you will be in competition with the online radio that already have a headstart over you. They already have their audiences and unlike you are professionals who are very good at what they do. I believe the rules of the game will also change for the in country private and community radios who if they want to stay relevant will also update their programmes. The Alburay Njie Private Radio will have plenty of competition to contend with and not only that will be dealing with audiences that are capable of analysing information presented to them. They no longer take everything that is spewed out to them but compare information from various sources.
Part 2 of the plan is that APRC plans to go underground so that it can re-emerge at a later day in full force stronger than it was before. Instead of standing as APRC candidates you say that you have identified key people to stand as Independent candidates and in your words « before people realise what has happened it will be too late ». You say that this is the strategy that you have agreed with «Tombong, Suku and Netty» , I presume you mean Fabakary Tombong Jatta, majority leader and member for Serekunda East, Ablie Suku Singhateh member for Lower Baddibu and Netty Baldeh, member for Tumani Constituency. It was five of you that were elected to the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja, for a four-year mandate for the Fourth legislature in February, 2016. The fifth person is Absana Jallow, member for Nianija.
The reason for this subterfuge is that the Coalition have demonized Yahya in colloboration with certain key elements within the APRC party. They have tainted his image based on baseless accusations. Yet all these are untrue for Jammeh is a good and generous person. His generousity is unparalled. According to you, «someone’s wealth is as dear to the person as his or her children. The person who is willing to share his wealth can only be regarded as a good person». This is the first time that I have heard this analogy. That is someone giving the same weighting to wealth as to children. This shows the type of person you are for to the majority of Gambians their children are «their most precious resource ». Not money and not things that money can buy. It is only you and your kind that can make this equation.
Furthermore you state that people have started to feel the pinch of Yahya’s departure. In your words «the whip has started to fall» for people betrayed the man who was so generous to them. According to you he gave generously at Tobaski and Ramadan. He also constructed roads and built schools and hospitals. With whose money? If a National Assembly Member like yourself who vote the development budgets can come up with a statement like this then God help The Gambia. The most important law that a legislature passes in any given year is the budget through the instrument of the Appropriation bill. Its importance is due to its role in sustaining the nation. In recognition of the seriousness of the budget the legislature has an oversight function to ensure that monies voted for are properly spent. The highest interests of the nation should transcend the power relations between the majority and the opposition in Parliament and should not hinder a proper implementation of the budget.
Taking into consideration, the seamless manner in which any and everything that is procured for public consumption is attributed to Jammeh and he proudly boasts of making the contribution then who is to be held accountable for how the money is spent. State resources are not the personal resources of Yahya Jammeh and the two should be seprated. To help your understanding of the budget its overall structure and process as well as the underlying policy issues the Pro Poor Advocacy Group in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance has consistently provided training to the NAMs to enable you effectively perform your role with regard to the budget. It seems that this capacity building initiative has not yielded results.
You also refer to the deportation of young persons that took the «back way» from Europe as retributive justice. Because of the change of government, European countries have embarked on a system of deporting Gambians back to the country as the country is now regarded as safe for those who had fled from terror. I do not have access to information on this subject aand cannot say much about it. What I can say is that it is heartless to rejoice over the misfortunes of these young people who undertook the perilious journey in search of greener and safer pastures and many of them lost their lives in the process. I also want to say that it is better to come home where you can regain your dignity rather than stagnate in the refugee camps in Europe, isolated and with no job or citizenship prospects.
For the strategy, you advise « APRC diehards and Yahya lovers » not to be confused when they see APRC members standing as independent candidates. You urge them not to see them as defectors as they have not defected but are carrying the APRC agenda forward. A ploy that you have all agreed upon as the best way forward in maintaining the survival and remergence of the APRC. Still according to you people see the APRC as a Yahya Jammeh party. However, the party does not belong to Yahya Jammeh but is an independent party capable of holding its own. There are many who would challenge you on this for even to outside observers it is evident that Yahya Jammeh controls the party as he controlled everything in The Gambia. He bankrolls the party, decides who the party mobiliser and other officials are as well as who should be expelled from the party.
Numerous loyal and committed APRC members and NAMs have been expelled from the party for relatively small dismeanours. To name a few we have Ramzia Diab, Ndey Njie, Duta Kamaso, Baba Jobe, Cherno Cham, Yaya Dibba, Borry Kolley, Mahawa Cham, Koffi Harris the list could go on. The two honourable ladies Ndey Njie and Duta Kamaso were expelled for statements they made while attending a meeting in Dakar. Harmless statements which caused them not only to lose their parliamentary seats but in the case of Duta to be detained for several months. If the statements they made were as dangerous and potentially as harmful as the statements made by you in your hotel room in Abuja then their fates would have been far worse.
You are lucky that you have made these statements under the dispensation of Adama Barrow for if you had made these under Yahya Jammeh’s you would have been charged with sedition and treason and attempting to overthrow a legitimate government. People have been charged with these crimes for simply distributing TEE shirts with the words « Say No To Tyranny » . You need to thank God that that all this plotting and scheming is taking place in an era that is not Jammeh’s. The God that you say «you have in your hands ». I have never heard such a blasphemous statement before. All believers in the One God believe that He has them in His Hands and they bow and submit only to His Holy will. I pray that Allah the Almighty forgives me for repeating this blasphemy. I had to do so however to illustrate the point that you are not even a good Muslim for a good Muslim would never utter the words «We have God in Our Hands».
To conclude, I want to tell you that it will soon be April. The IEC has set the National Assembly Elections for the 6th April 2017. Let us see if your ploy works. Gambians now know what your plan is. Let us see if they will fall for the bait.