Post-Yaya Gambia: I am listening.
In your piece entitled “Post-Yaya Gambia” published in the Maafanta online newspaper you raised some very important concern regarding what next for Gambia after Yaya Jammeh Jammeh and need to concentrate our efforts, thoughts and action on planning for such an eventuality and not just concentrate our minds on getting rid of Jammeh by any means necessary and then leave tomorrow to take care of itself. This is something that I have pondered over many times in my private moments over the last several years. I think many of the players today, either in the Gambia or in the Diaspora, who are oppose to Jammeh are too preoccupied with just getting rid of Jammeh that they do not think about, much less do any actual planning for a post-Yaya Jammeh era in the Gambia. In doing that we are falling into the same mistake and trap we fell into during the time of Sir Dawda Jawara. We were so fed up with Jawara and his PPP government after 30 years in power that all we wanted, prayed and worked for was for Jawara to go. We believe anything would be better than the thirty-year, seemingly unending rule of PPP and Jawara. To that extend, many people welcomed Yaya Jammeh as a welcome break from the monotony of PPP and Jawara’s rule, the corruption, the ineptitude, the moral decadence, the poor condition of most of the roads, the lack of any serious development anywhere outside Banjul and Serre Kunda, the collapse of public institutions like GPMB, PWD, GCDB, Gambia Cooperative Union, etc. We were so fed up that we believed anything would be better than Jawara. And so when the so-called soldiers with a difference came on 22nd July 1994, many welcomed them with open hands as breath of fresh air. And 19 long years after that fateful day, look at where we are now. We have a murderous, brutal and intolerant dictator on our hands that is looting and pillaging our economic in broad daylight, promoting tribalism and building a Jola tribal hegemony. An infantile imbecile, who claims to have mystical powers, can talk to djinns, can cure HIV with herbal medicine and verses from the Quran, possesses the key to God’s world bank, daubs in witchcraft, worships and consults Jalangs (idols) and marabouts for major government policy decision, mussels the opposition and the press jailing, killing and forced disappearances, closure of newspapers and radio stations, restricts freedom and personal liberties, orders his army to fire and kill unarmed students, prostitutes our sisters and wives. A President who openly engages in all sorts of business activities in competition with ordinary citizens, even though he does not pay tax and in clear violation of the constitution. A President who expects and often gets civil servants, Cabinet Ministers, every branch of the security forces including the Army, the National Assembly, Judges and other members of the Judiciary  and ordinary men and women to provide free slave labour on his many farms. A President, who usurps land from ordinary citizens and non-citizens alike, now owns more than 200 landed properties throughout the country including government land such as the Kiang National Park. Nobody has done the calculations but Yaya Jammeh could easily have now owned between 10-20% of the Gambia’s land surface through his many land grabbing schemes. A President who has stayed for 19 years and plans to rule for a billion years, when he accused Jawara of over-staying, after thirty years. 
So I would have thought that Gambians have learnt their lesson from the what has become the Yaya Jammeh/AFPRC/APRC debacle and fraud it has come to be and amidst all the things, we would have been actively thinking about not just how get rid of Yaya Jammeh and his criminal enterprise he calls a government but more importantly how to make sure that it never happens again. But it seems Gambians never learn from history.
So Mr. Burama Jammeh you one soul mate here in me, to debate, to exchange ideas, and build a coalition and a broad-based front. I live in the Gambia and so for now I will use a pseudonym for obvious reasons until the time is right.
To kick start the discussion, I am proposing that at the end it should not just be a talk for talk shake, but the discussions, the ideas, the suggestions should snowball into a solid document which will be both backward and forward looking at the same time. Backward looking in order to investigate and hold Yaya Jammeh and his senior civil servants, Police, Military leaders, Judges and political leaders accountable for they did to the Gambia: the crimes committed, the frauds, the corruption, the killings, the tortures, taxes evaded, the lands seized. In short for the rape of this country and rectify the past wrongs to the extent possible. At the same time it will be forward looking in terms of building strong and democratic institutions so that we can say never, never and never again will we as a nation, as a people and society allow our beloved Gambia to be raped, bastardised by single person or groups of persons like Yaya Jammeh and his AFRPRC/APRC did to the Gambia.
Still in the spirit of kick starting the debate, I am proposing that the Post-Jammeh Programme should include the following:
1)	Constitutional reform. This will bring in the mandatory two term presidency, second round voting, remove the death penalty and remove the clause which allows any party leader to remove a sitting Member of Parliament by removing him/her from the party and minimum age limit of 40 years for future Presidents. Bring back the true separation of powers between the legislature, the judiciary and the executive as well as the separation of the ruling party form government all of which have been eroded under Yaya Yammeh.
2)	The rebuilding of the Civil Service, which has been destroyed, politicised and tribalised under Yaya Jammeh.
3)	Revitalisation of the Constituency Boundaries commission and the Redrawing of the constituencies to roughly adhere to the well-established principle of equal representation for equal number of people that is characteristic of representative democracy all over the world. This would get rid of the ridiculous and undemocratic status quo where there are more than 166,000 in Kombo North, 84, 000 people in Kombo Central and 60,000 people in Kombo South are each represented by  one National Assembly member, compared with 49,236 people in the whole of Foni represented by five national Assembly members (on average 9,847 persons to one national Assembly Representative) or Jangjangbureh Constituency with a population of 3,223 also represented by one National Assembly Member. 
4)	De-A(F)PRC /de-Jammehnisation/de-militraisation/de-tribalisation. Does any one remember the De-Nazification of Germany after the World War II or the de-BATHification of Iraq after Sadam Hussein? Yes we need some de-AFPRC/A(F)PRCification of the Gambia after Yaya Jammeh, demilitarization of public and political space as well as de-tribalisation of the civil service, the military and political and public spaces. 
5)	Reconstituting and revitalizing a more truly Independent Electoral Commission.
6)	Ensuring a truly independent judiciary, confirmation and removal of Judges to be done only by an Independent Judicial services commission. The President should be able to single-handedly appoint or fire Chief Justice, Judges and Magistrates.
7)	Disbanding of the Military: The Gambia has no need for a standing army. The army, which by definition should an institution of protection and security for the citizens who pay them with their tax money has become an instrument of intimidation, solely concern with the protection of one man, Yaya Jammeh and preservation of his Presidency. It should be disbanded. But this has to be done with utmost tact and care otherwise the army would overthrow the government and thwart the moves to disband them and remove their coveted prestigious position form them. This should start with disarming them and then preparing a programme to re-skill them for life after the army. Then the Weapons will be burnt. The money that is currently being syphoned out of the budget to maintain the army will be allocated to health, education and agriculture in equal measure.
8)	Invariably there has to be commissions of inquiries to look into the most serious cases such as the abuse of office, corruption, the murders, tortures, abductions, the enforced disappearances, the April 10th and 11th and to bring to court those who bear the greatest responsibility.
9)	The 200 or so pieces of land that Yaya Jammeh owns, will be taken and given back to the respective communities NOT to the families of Kabilos who gave them away to Yaya Jammeh at the expense of their members, but back to the Villages to be used as reserved lands for public use only.
10)	A truly functioning National Civic Education Council to educate citizens about their rights and responsibilities in a functioning democratic republic.
Mr. Burama Jammeh these are my thoughts and my contribution as a way of kick-starting the discussion and the initiative. I fervently hope that more people with even brighter ideas will join and I truly hope that this will evolve into a think-tank, Gambia’s own version of Council of Foreign Relations, which will not driven by ideology or political ambition but by patriotism, intellectualism, rigor and a desire to contribute to our collective national wellbeing. The think-tank should be non-political, non-tribal, non-sectarian, non-sexists and ideas should be freely available to any political party or individual who want to use it to advance national development, democracy, human rights, personal liberties, freedom and good governance in the Gambia or anywhere for that matter.


Thank you. Aluta Continua

Yours in the Struggle for a democratic and free Gambia
Signed: SFOJ25091962
Sally Hujar Sey (not My Real Name)

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