I am glad that you have taken up my challenge to debate, based on issues and backed by facts. Our debates will continue as long as we both agree to abide by the conditions we agreed upon.
Hopefully, our series of debates will be enabling for the ordinary person in The Gambia, or with Gambian interests at heart. We shall be endeavouring to arrive at the truth in an impartial and non-aggressive way, and we shall avoid defamation of character without substantiation, as well as personality-driven untruths or innuendo.I am undertaking this series of debates in good faith, and with sincerity, and I count on you to do the same. Indeed, from what you replied in your e mail message, this is your solemn intention.
Let our audience be our judges.I am a very busy person these days, and I want to commence with a debate over an issue that is crucial to the good future of our country. In my subsequent postings to this debate-line, I shall address the merits and demerits of Yahya Jammeh’s rule. I shall be putting Jammeh’s record under the microscope and shall be assessing all sectors of life under the Jammeh/APRC regime from 1994 onwards. You in turn, will be putting the alternative view, and hopefully will be substantiating all your claims in this public forum.
For today’s first posting however, I should like to focus on the leader of The Gambia, Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, and to review the man behind the office. I shall limit my review in this first instance to the years 1994-1996, and my contention is that Jammeh is and has been a LIAR.
I shall enumerate and substantiate the reasons for my contention that Jammeh is a LIAR, and shall not rely on hearsay or gossip.According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Third Edition 1983), a LIAR is “one who lies: an untruthful person”. A LIE is defined as “a false statement made with intent to deceive: a criminal falsehood”: to LIE is “to speak falsely; to convey a false impression; to be deceptive”.
Given these definitions, my charge in this first debate is that Yahya A.J.J.Jammeh is indeed a liar. I base my charge on the following:1. When Jammeh seized power on July 22nd 1994, no-one put a gun to his head and forced him to make pledges which he could not fulfil. Of his own volition, he set out the yardsticks by which he wanted to be judged: with the slogan “soldiers with a difference !!”, he promised that a new era of transparency, accountability, probity, genuine democracy and progress would follow. He challenged the Press to criticise him and his colleagues if and when they went wrong.
(See Daily Observer 25.07.94)2. Jammeh claimed that he would rectify the corruption and the wrongs of the previous government, and that as soon as the wrongs were resolved, he would hand over power to a civilian government. Jammeh said that his rule was going to be a temporary one.
(Daily Observer 25.07.94)Jammeh also stated that “We are only here to rectify the wrongs of the past regime, and then we shall hand over power to a democratically elected government”.
(Article 19 Newsletter: Democracy Overturned in The Gambia. December 1994).Jammeh announced that he had no interest in politics, and put himself forward as someone who would never betray the trust of the people. He explained that “politics were meant for the rogues, the thieves and the drunkards”.
((West Africa Magazine, 4th August 1994)
3. Jammeh castigated the lifestyle of members of the Jawara government, which he described as “flamboyant”. He said that not one of his government would ever lead such a life. He claimed that they would not drive Mercedes Benz vehicles, neither would they live in the exclusive government residences in the Fajara area
Jammeh also claimed that there would be no increase in ministerial salaries (including his own) and that transparency and accountability would be the order of the day.(State of Fear in Paradise: By Zaya Yeebo, Africa Research Information Bureau 1995).
4. Furthermore, Jammeh castigated the bumsters who married foreigners (especially whites) and he preached about pan-Africanism and the need to “drink from our own water”. He even attacked those with dreadlocks, saying it was a “foreign habit” and he instructed his forces to cut any dreadlocks which violated his “decree”.
(Article 19 Newsletter: Democracy Overturned in The Gambia, December 1994).5. Jammeh also, whilst noting that former President Jawara had overstayed his time in power, stated that a new Gambian Constitution would come into force which would limit the time span for a future President of The Gambia to two terms of five years each. Jammeh took pains to reiterate that no-one would be allowed in the future to rule this country for more than two terms of five years.
(The Gambia: From Coup to Elections. John Wiseman, Journal of Democracy, 2nd April 1998).6. Jammeh also condemned Sir Dawda Jawara and his Ministers for what he called their “massive overseas trips”. He said that Sir Dawda and former Ministers had travelled excessively and with huge Imprest and Per Diem allowances. Now that he was in charge, Jammeh claimed that he would put a stop to these practices and limit overseas travel for civil servants and politicians.
(Military Rule in The Gambia: an Interim Assessment, John Wiseman, Third World Quarterly Vol. 17 No. 5 1996).7. On B.B.Darboe (former Finance Minister under President Jawara), Jammeh said that he would retain him in his Ministerial post because he was not corrupt. In an interview with the Daily Observer (July 25th 1994), Jammeh interestingly said about the former president, “We all know that we owe it to him that the name of The Gambia has reached the international level, and we respect him…..we have no problem against him….from time to time we will need to consult him…”. Jammeh further said that “The People who were behind him (Jawara) misled him, were corrupt and did whatever they wanted to do because he was too lenient” ------------but “there are some good guys in the PPP. We are not painting all members of the PPP Government as bad or corrupt”.
(Daily Observer 25 July 1994)Jammeh appointed Bakary Darboe to a Ministerial Post in the early days of the coup period. When he sacked him in October 1994, Elizabeth Ohene of the BBC, asked Jammeh for his reasons. Jammeh replied that Darboe was “too corrupt: not clean”.
(Focus on Africa programme, BBC, October 1994)8. In late September 1994, Jammeh was quoted at a Press Conference in Senegal as saying that “military rule in the Gambia would be retained for four years”.
(Military Rule in The Gambia: An Interim Assessment: John Wiseman, Third World Quarterly Vol 17 No. 5 1996)
After an outcry following this Senegalese trip, Jammeh claimed that he had been misquoted by the Senegalese press and that he had really said that “they would be in power for years, rather than for four years.”.
To everyone’s surprise in October 1994 when Jammeh and the AFPRC announced its transition programme, he stated that he would indeed be in power for “four years” confirming what the Senegalese press had earlier reported.On January 27th 1995, Jammeh arrested Captain Sadibou Hydara and his Vice Chairman of the AFPRC Captain Sana Sabally. Jammeh claimed that Sabally and Hydara wanted to kill him (Jammeh) in order to seize power for themselves. Jammeh claimed that the two Captains did not want to accept the National Consultative Committee’s recommendation that the transitional timetable be reduced from four years to two years. Jammeh maintained that these two men wanted to prolong his stay in power, but that he did not agree with them. Jammeh claimed that he would hand over power in July 1996 to a civilian, democratically elected government, in keeping with the recommendations of the NCC.
(New Citizen Newspaper 3 February 1995)Now, close on seven years into the Jammeh regime, we can analyse Jammeh’s statements of yesterday against today’s realities.
1. Jammeh is a politician (albeit out of army uniform), even though he claimed that this was never his intention.2. Power has not been handed over to a civilian government in 1996 as he promised. Instead, Jammeh donned civilian clothing more or less overnight, and succeeded himself.
3. Jammeh now runs TWO statehouses in Banjul and Kanilai, and countless thousands of Dalasis have been expended on these from public coffers. Jammeh leads the life of an ultra-rich man and is on the record as saying that his own grandchildren will never be poor in their lives. Jammeh’s salary has been increased from 14,000 Dalasis to in excess of 26,000 Dalasis per month BASIC).Jammeh now owns and uses a private aircraft for his out of country travels, and he is rarely in The Gambia for more than half the year.
Jammeh’s Ministers and top Civil Servants live in the Fajara or Kololi areas in government-funded quarters. Each has a mobile and a house phone paid for by the government: each also has access to three official government vehicles (one utility; one provincial and one official).4. Jammeh himself has married a light-skinned Arabic woman, whose baby was born in a US hospital (and not in The Gambia).
5. Following the Constitutional Review Committee set up in April 1995, and its report in December 1995, a clause was set up in the Draft Constitution which limited the terms of a President to two of five years each. The minimum age of a Presidential candidate was set at 40 years.Jammeh retained this Draft Constitution until March 1996, and then issued the Draft Constitution minus the clauses inserted by the CRC. Instead, Jammeh put forward a clause allowing a President to rule for as long as he wished, and reducing the Presidential age limit to 30 years (in order that he himself would qualify).
Stunned by the doctored Draft Constitution, Gabriel Roberts told Sheriff Bojang of the Daily Observer that the changes to the Draft Constitution were purely in the hands of Jammeh and his Ministers. Roberts confirmed that indeed there was a clause in the Draft Constitution limiting the terms for the Presidency to two terms of five years as suggested by Jammeh in the early days of the Coup.(Daily Observer, April 1996).
6. Jammeh’s overseas trips, and those of his Ministers, government officials and cronies, have proliferated and are on public record, as well as being reported in the independent media as well as on the state-controlled GRTS.Jammeh in particular, often travels abroad without prior announcement: as recently as March 2001, he visited Libya without informing The Gambian public in advance.
7. Jammeh claimed that he would retain BB Darboe because he was clean, efficient, competent and corruption-free. Within the space of three months, Darboe had been sacked/removed from his post (Jammeh now claimed that he considered Darboe to be corrupt and unclean).
Based on the above, I ask you, Kebba Jobe, to refute my contention that Jammeh is a LIAR. In summary, having regard to what Jammeh said “yesterday” and comparing this with what he did “today”, it is clear even to Primary One students that Jammeh is indeed a liar, by the previously-given definition.In my next submission, I shall concentrate on Jammeh’s record as a LIAR from 1996 onwards.
I await your response.Ebrima Ceesay,
Birmingham, UK.