You are welcome Yero. I hope the weather is treating you guys better this
days.
Suntou

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 2:22 PM, Y Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Bro. Suntou,
>
> The series from Saul is a great recap of Gambia's current political toad
> metamorphosis.
>
> Great forward, & keep them coming....
>
> Thanks,
> Yero.
>
>
> *There is no god but Allah (SWT) and Muhammad (SAW) is His messenger. Fear
> and Worship only Allah alone!*
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 23:38:20 +0000
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Forcing square pegs in round holes, hmm (Saul Saidykhan) is
> leaving no stone unturn. Directing speaking
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
> *www.maafanta.com*
> *Square Pegs v. Round Holes, Apples v. Oranges
> *
> *Part Four *
>
> *By: Saul Saidykhan ([log in to unmask]) *
>
>
>    On clues, there were more: Capt Ebou Jallow was never a Finance
>    Ministry official, yet
>    he was handling millions of dollars in cash at the behest of Capt Yaya
>    Jammeh. We
>    knew about this irregularity only because the two fell out, and ended
>    up in court. But
>    regardless of what one thinks of Jallow, there’s no doubt that the man
>    was delegated by
>    Jammeh to do what he was doing.
>
>    Typical of Jammeh, when things fell apart, he blamed it all on Jallow.
>    Many Gambians
>    believed him. And then, there was the hurried “Foundation” formation.
>    Yaya Jammeh,
>    who was a *notorious Broke-ass *when he was selected military junta
>    Chairman, soon
>    morphed into a millionaire before our eyes. There were many other
>    inconsistencies that
>    simply flew past us.
>
>
> My point in citing all the foregoing incidents (from “a” to “q”) which ALL
> happened BEFORE Jammeh took over as
> “president,” is to demonstrate that Yaya Jammeh did what he had to do (lie,
> con, fake, name it,) to get to where he
> wanted to go. It’s Gambians who failed in their responsibility – over and
> over again. In every single one of the cited
> cases, what Yaya Jammeh and his gang were promising or saying was the
> diametric opposite of what they were doing!
> Yet very few Gambians seemed to have caught on to what was going on. Are
> Gambians so stupid that we cannot pick
> up on clear signs of deceit until something undesirable happens?
> *
> But then we proudly call ourselves people from the “Smiling Coast,” a
> moniker that on close examination,
> does not speak well of our thinking ability. You see, excessive smiling
> –especially in the midst of the kind
> of misery that is pervasive in Gambia, is a sure sign of idiocy! *Discerning
> people around the world have to
> wonder how Gambians will behave if they had the basics of life – clean
> water, good roads, adequate electricity, good
> schools, good hospitals, basic human rights, security of life and property,
> etc. We lack all these, and we are the Smiling
> people? A friend of mine thinks I’m being too critical in pointing this
> out, but I’d rather we call ourselves something else.
> The “Friendly” or “Warm’ or “Sunny” Coast would be better at least until we
> have something to smile about.
>
> What is our claim to be called intelligent human beings anyway? I am
> particularly at pains trying to understand how
> “educated” people who conveniently ignored the many open lies Yaya Jammeh
> told Gambians during that crucial 1994-
> 1996 period can now accuse him of being dishonorable. They cheered him on
> to self-succeed because he has the
> “right to run for president as a Gambian” despite his own public promise
> that he won’t. What has following through on a
> promise – an honor or moral construct, got to do with his having a “right
> to” run as a Gambian – a legal precept? See
> the hypocritical False Debates we are subjected to? Some actually egged him
> on in the delusional belief that democracy
> would flourish better under Jammeh relative to the first republic – despite
> abundant historical facts regarding his types
> that suggest otherwise.
>
> Integrity is not just about what one says or does. It also includes how one
> holds others accountable for what they say or
> do. If you let someone lie to you without any protest, you’re probably as
> guilty as the liar in terms of lack of integrity, and
> you’re most certainly guilty of hypocrisy when you later protest at similar
> behavior. Yaya Jammeh should be asking
> some people what the heck they’re bitching at him for these days.
>
> It is because of such hypocrisy that I sometimes find myself feeling sorry
> for Yaya Jammeh. In so many ways, this man is
> as much a victim as he is a victimizer of Gambian people. Many that had it
> in for the former regime cheered and egged
> Jammeh on long after it became obvious that his actions were purely
> arbitrary, and motivated by anything other than
> justice. In him, they had found a hound dog, and they’re now surprised he
> has not confined his hunting to their
> designated prey. This becomes plain when one considers that Yaya Jammeh
> CLEARLY lacks the requisite Skills Set to
> run a poultry farm properly, not to talk of a whole country. Because it
> served their purposes at the time, they played
> dumb. Now that it has back-fired, its all Yaya Jammeh’s fault. Those that
> are not honest enough to admit their role in
> foisting Jammeh on us, lack the moral wherewithal to criticize the man.
>
> *It’s no wonder at all that under Jammeh, Gambian public life has become
> one of classic tragicomedy. And
> why would any “educated” person be surprise that Jammeh has messed up so
> much? My personal training
> is in the Finance/Accounting/technology areas. If one lets me perform
> medical operations on their loved
> ones, there’ll be a lot more dead bodies heading for the cemetery– not
> because I intend to kill people, but
> because I simply don’t know any better when it comes to health care. Such
> is the case with someone like
> Yaya Jammeh running a country. * The man simply does not know what he’s
> doing because of his obvious lack of
> qualifications. It’s the combination of the baggage (call it a complex,)
> that his lack of education has saddled him with,
> and his justified fear for his life, that triggers the weirdness that has
> now morphed into the real mental sickness he is
> now universally known for.
>
> The Yaya Jammeh Show would in fact be hilarious if not for the severity of
> the consequences of his misrule – sometimes
> manifested in naked criminality, on the lives of two million people. As it
> is, we are forced to be spectators to an endless
> sequence of frighteningly bizarre or unspeakably cruel acts by Yaya Jammeh
> and his thugs. One bizarre event
> supplants another as the headline of public discourse regarding Gambian
> affairs within and outside the country. Some
> of Yaya’s antics are so stunningly bizarre that most native Africans –not
> just Gambians, can hardly do anything more
> than pretend to laugh them off while internally weeping at the
> gut-wrenching and really embarrassing spectacles. Others
> are so outrageous that those of us who lived in Gambia before Jammeh, are
> forced to engage in juvenile denial about
> what is in fact the ugly reality in the country.
>
> Before one can wrap his or her mind around one shocking event, another
> comes along that is even more outrageous in
> its absurdity, brutality, or senselessness. Apparently, there is no bottom
> in terms of how low Yaya Jammeh will pull down
> The Gambia in the view of normal people around the globe. Following Gambian
> events today is therefore, to put it
> mildly, being witness to a ceaseless bacchanalia of the bizarre
> interspersed with the horrendous. Almost everything that
> we native Gambians used to swear with swagger “could never happen in
> Gambia” is now commonplace in the country.
> From murder to rape, state-sanctioned brutality against an endless list of
> “enemies,” to legitimized naked ethnic
> jingoism, Gambians are now well inured in the most unflattering categories.
> Most Gambians nowadays just shake their
> heads and go on with their daily grind for survival at news of all types of
> horror that would have been talked about for
> years (because of how seldom they were) before Yaya Jammeh took over.
> Jammeh’s rule is simply one of a mad man
> taking over the mental asylum! Yet, it’s all predictable.
>
> If one dares to harken back to the beginning of the sixteen years that he
> has foisted himself on us, there are literally
> dozens of incidents where Jammeh and his government’s actions simply defy
> sanity, logic, and basic commonsense.
> The most egregious of his crimes of course, was the April 2000 incidents in
> which school children, tired of being abused
> by his soldiers tried to hold a protest march. Jammeh, who fashions himself
> as a “friend” of students, ordered his
> soldiers to fire on them. The soldiers were not content with shooting at
> the kids at the proposed protest location which
> was in an industrial area; they literally chased the children for miles
> into residential areas shooting at them as if they
> were escaped wild animals. Consequently, a three year old toddler was also
> killed in addition to the over one dozen
> school children that were brutally robbed of their lives needlessly.  Some
> fret about what Jammeh does to opposition
> leaders, yet even if he rounds up all opposition leaders and shoots them,
> that crime would be minor compared to what
> he did to the little school children in 2000 – in my book.
>
> Anyhow, Jammeh’s multi-dimensional crimes began much earlier in his reign.
> Today, these have come full circle, and
> encompass almost all aspects of Gambian public life –some less known or
> discussed than others. Yaya’s violence
> against the Press, political opponents, opinionated citizens, human and
> civic rights activists, and members of the
> security apparatus he feels threatened by for myriad reasons, are well
> documented. Less discussed is his equally
> revolting crimes in the areas of personalizing the country’s finances; his
> usurpation of both public and private lands and
> properties through the abuse of the concept of “Eminent Domain;” his open
> involvement in commerce and the willful
> destruction of legitimate businesses -sometimes through surrogates; his
> deliberate stifling of the professionalization of
> public institutions by making “tribe,” “loyalty,” and ethnicity THE
> necessary criteria in public appointments; his abuse of
> the judiciary as a tool to “teach” those who won’t kiss up  to him, “a
> lesson” and so on.
>
> He’s is a classic case of “Rule by Law,” not Rule Of Law because in his
> Gambia, “the law” is personified by Yaya
> Jammeh alone. What Jammeh wants, Jammeh takes, whether that is someone
> else’s woman, car, land, or building; what
> Jammeh says is automatically THE LAW irrespective of what the law books
> say.  There is no worse example of a modern
> ruler anywhere operating with more impunity than Jammeh is in Gambia. Yaya
> Jammeh has put Gambia on the global
> map for all the wrong reasons!
>
> However,  as tempting as it is to dump all the blame on Yaya as so many do,
> that option does no justice to either the
> facts, or the record. The hard truth is Jammeh has had, and continues to
> have a lot of help in all the schemes he
> engages in criminally in the name of governance. Be it land, or business
> deal, Jammeh often operates through well-
> known fronts.  * Like I stated before, Yaya Jammeh’s behavior is
> representative of the average Gambian. In a
> sense, he is a man Made In Gambia wholesome. Though part mafia don, part
> buccaneer, part political
> conman, part drug kingpin, the overly lecherous, unnaturally greedy,
> hustler-minded, and utterly
> unscrupulous tribal bigot that he is, Yaya Jammeh only embodies what is
> wrong with the generality of
> Gambian people:
> *
> He lives in the immediate -as do many Gambians; he has no compunction about
> lying to gratify some temporary urge or
> to stave off some inconvenience –as do many Gambians; he is incapable of
> being loyal to any person, group, principle,
> or cause –neither are many Gambians;  he lacks the discipline to study
> anything in depth to understand its intricacies or
> the implications of making alternative decisions -like many Gambians; he is
> a master of One-liners and worn out clichés,
> perennially confusing form for substance –like so many Gambians; he is a
> small-minded medieval cultist, who despite
> pretensions, does not really believe in or follow the dictates of any of
> the monotheistic religions –neither do many
> Gambians; he lacks depth and is bereft of the gift of commonsense – but if
> truth be told, he is again, among solid
> company as a Gambian. Too many Gambians behave exactly the same way he
> does!
>
> It is precisely because of these inconvenient facts that Jammeh’s behavior
> still illicit no outrage in so many Gambians,
> thus his continued LEGITIMIZED BRIGANDAGE deceptively wrapped around
> democracy just because he is “elected.”
> Elections make NOT democracy! The Gambia is on the move no doubt, but in a
> direction that is the exact antithesis of
> democratic apogee. Almost all the gains that were recorded under the first
> republic in terms of building institutions,
> nurturing a culture of civil dissent -be that verbal or written, and
> instituting a meritocracy in the public sphere, have all
> been long lost.
>
> In their place, we have Yaya Jammeh’s whims and caprices – the twisted,
> rambling, inchoate ideas, part narcissistic, part
> comical, part juvenile, but invariably dangerous because of their
> deleterious effects on our body polity. Jammeh’s
> problem is compounded by the fact that the man is an absolutist of the
> worst kind: he is absolutely sure that he is the
> absolute personification of patriotism and progress in the Gambia –a
> Special Visionary, someone uniquely qualified to
> lead and “debolop” the country, and anyone with any contrary view is
> absolutely unpatriotic, and therefore guilty of
> treason. These, he believes absolutely!
>
> What is at once perturbing and infuriating about Jammeh’s attitude is the
> implication that the man must have acquired
> his knowledge on the wings of some benevolent extraterrestrial spirit since
> some of us enquiring minds have been
> unable to locate any institution on this planet that has prepared Yaya
> Jammeh to be not only the uniquely qualified
> leader of our country that he claims to be, but also the All-round
> professional who harangues us about our deficiencies
> on everything from farming to business, economics to politics,
> industriousness to discipline, not to mention what it
> means to love the Motherland. In any of these areas, having to listen to
> Jammeh is –pardon the analogy, worse than
> sitting through a lecture on Lady-Like Behavior from the Town Tramp!
>
> Like I just stated, Yaya Jammeh is a perfect embodiment of everything that
> holds us back as a country, though not an
> exception. At the public level, he runs a government that is now a globally
> recognized symbol of recklessness,
> opaqueness, excess, and retrogression -be that financial, executive,
> judicial, or legislative. At the personal level, he is
> the epitome of indiscipline, and unscrupulousness. So how can such a
> character teach anyone anything good?
> *
> But then, as titled in this series, we’re a people who like to force Square
> Pegs into Round Holes.* And we
> wonder why the result is not to our liking. We’re looking for peace from a
> man who is at war with himself. Since when can
> any human being give what he or she does not have? Yaya Jammeh is a very
> sick man. This is the man who has made
> the careers of countless Gambian professionals, security officials, or
> Civil Service careerists mimic the life of the fictional
> Solomon Grundy who was born on a Monday, and died the next Sunday, but
> in-between, experienced all the major
> joyous and painful experiences of living. *We’ve seen several army
> officers wake up as Lt. General on a Monday,
> and go into that weekend as Major General after having been demoted to
> enlisted Private soldier mid-
> week! In Jammeh’s Gambia, it’s now commonplace to see Mondays’ National
> Award winning “patriot”
> become Friday’s treason-accused prisoner. This is an insane man doing
> insane things! And WE let him.
> *
> Those who follow world politics might recall the case of Abdala Bucaram,
> the Lebanese-Ecuadorian who got elected
> president of his country in 1996. On the day he won the election, he went
> out to play soccer with youngsters. People
> loved that because they thought they had finally found a simple man who
> wouldn’t take himself too seriously as their
> president. Well, it didn’t take long before they realized that their
> self-described “loco” president was truly “loco” – crazy!
> That became apparent when he started to confuse the country’s money for his
> own. It took only six months for the
> legislature to rise up and kick the mad president out.
>
> For years now, Yaya jammeh has stopped pretending that there is a
> difference between his personal pocket and our
> national treasury. Both funds are commingled. Yet, it’s ok to us. Yaya
> Jammeh told Gambians some years ago that he
> has lost his “friendly, harmless” djinn friend, and again, Gambians don’t
> see anything wrong with that. Since then, he
> has had to intervene between warring djinns as their “mediator.” Yet, it’s
> just another day in Gambia. I ask again, what is
> Gambians’ claim to be called intelligent human beings?
>
> In the next installment, we’ll put the “good” Yaya Jammeh in its proper
> perspective since one cannot talk about Jammeh’
> s misrule these days without being asked about “the good things he has
> done.” From the little I read, it’s obvious – but
> not surprising to me, that in order to appear “balanced,” some are putting
> out arrant nonsense about Jammeh’s record
> devoid of any relevant context. We shall supply such relevant context, and
> lay out the concomitant effects of Jammeh’s
> LEGITIMIZED BRIGANDAGE manifested in his naked primitive appetite to amass
> wealth relative to what obtained under
> the regime he toppled.
>
> Earshot
>
> A friend called to say he read something from Senegalese sources about
> President Jawara marrying Yaya Jammeh’s
> mum a couple of days ago. Thought the whole thing was a joke. Jawara is way
> past his shelf life as a man. So, this is no
> marriage as we know it. What is Yaya Jammeh hoping to gain by forcing his
> old lady on Jawara? It most certainly won’t
> buy him any respite or respectability from those of us determined to see
> his back. To those who still don’t get it, this
> speaks volumes about Jammeh. This is NOT about Jawara or mama Jammeh. This
> is all about Yaya Jammeh and his
> evil machinations.* This man is actually using his own mum for political
> expediency. Unbelievable! All Jawara
> wants and deserves is quiet, peaceful retirement. Apparently, even that is
> too much to ask. The man is
> close to ninety years old! What happened to the Imam he Jammeh married his
> mum to initially anyway? What
> a country!
> *
>
>
> --
> Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
> "And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the
> difference of your languages and colours. Verily, in that are indeed signs
> for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran
>
> www.suntoumana.blogspot.com
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-- 
Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
"And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the
difference of your languages and colours. Verily, in that are indeed signs
for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran

www.suntoumana.blogspot.com


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