From The Independent

Independent View

No other conclusion


Make no mistake about it. Come to no other conclusion. The NIA is one
Gambian institution many love to hate. Post electiom anests and the closure
of Citizen FM are more reasons perhaps for people to hate them even more.
Originally known as the National Intelligence Agency, it has been
transformed into the National Intimidating Agency which poke its nose into
everything and everybody save those it serves in the name of security. It is
in most cases usurping what should be the functions of the police to deal
with fraud, embezzlement, civil cases and other incidents whose implications
limited as they always are, remain far removed from the issue of security.

The celebration of Jammeh's election victory was being maned by surging
tales of arrests and detention, whose head and tail are hard to fathom.
Distinguishing oneself as an opposition sympathiser was enough to send
plainclothes rushing to your door. The aim more than anything else is to
scare and harass people into living quiet lives, that they may not have to
question anything and react in any way.

However, of all the recent NIA "security" activities the closure of Citizen
FM and the arrest, release and rearrest of its Proprietor Baboucarr Gaye
stands out as the most absurd. The fact that the only 'sin' committed by the
proprietor was to be in arrears in terms of operational tax amounting to
D93, 000 says it all about how far removed the NIA are from their original
terms of reference, which is to investigate security matters of national
proportions. There is really no NIA business in the payment of a radio
station's operational tax or otherwise. That is the job of the Income Tax
Office, which is being outlandishly usurped for no clear-cut end other than
to make sure that the station is prevented from operating.

What is more - no law in The Gambia ( if the constitution would apply here)
gives the NIA the right to order the closure of a radio station for not
paying its operational tax. Only the courts have such powers to do so if we
should be talking in terms of the true spirit of Gambian democracy. If the
courts have not done so, who or what on earth could have given the NIA the
powers to close a radio station by the touch of a telephone. It is
unfortunate to think of how far these "men of security" would go to injure
the media. Indeed Citizen FM was an a blessing for The Gambia. Never before
had a radio station attracted a teeming listenership.

For the first time in our history, the unlettered majority who have been the
silent majority were given access to information hitherto reserved for the
educated few. Its pungent programmes of social significance confirmed the
station's important status as a reservoir of hope for all who care about the
media as the agent of free, unhindered flow of information accross the
country. What a shame that this promising trend was cut short by the
unrefined impulse of people who thought strangely otherwise.

It is really absurd to think of how our intelligence agents have made
themselves the permanent target of hate among people who felt profoundly
wronged and abused by them without any convincing explanation other than the
abstract excuse tied to security. They must never forget that casting
themselves in the image of an organ of terror and intimidation will do the
NIA no good. They should do better.





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