As I contemplate on Sister Jabou Joh's numerous eye-openers and other important pieces, I thought forwarding this "old" one from the Independent may just provide insigt into the legitimate sources of fear of ordinary salaried Gambians.
This fear needs to be understood and respected if a dialogue about our nation's fate should be possible between comapatriots at home and those of us in the diaspora.

Momodou S Sidibeh

Of Sackings And Rumours 

The Independent (Banjul) 
OPINION
September 29, 2003 
Posted to the web September 30, 2003 
Banjul 

It had been inactive for nearly a year but, when it resumed operations, it did what it had always done: propel chosen civil servants to clear their desks and head home. Yes, we are nattering about the feared, from a civil servant's stand point, Jammeh "broom." 

Over the years, it has become the nightmare of many a civil servant, each dreading, clammy-palmed, of when it would swish them off. This alone is a far from healthy sign. To work in trepidation of being given the boot and to deliver the goods under such situations is a life-sized task. Thus, working towards the betterment of the state and her peoples is a fleeting illusion. Since that fateful Friday morning when power was wrested from Jawara's PPP, Gambians have known sackings, sackings, sackings! 

This has rolled on, unabated for so long there would come a time when one would need all one's fingers, toes and an abacus to know how many civil servants have been "thanked." It seems there is no end to the long, winding spate of dizzying sackings. In the past few weeks, two SOS's have had the misfortune (?) of been broomed out while one packed it in. Ousman Badjie and Famara Jatta, formerly of the Interior and Finance Departments, were asked never to darken the doors of their previous offices while Justice Secretary, Joseph Joof, made the decision to walk away. Who knows, he may have been made to leave had he not left. 

For nine years, Gambians never had the fortune of being told why so and so civil servant was asked to take his or her hands off deck, which is exasperatingly unfair. 

A nation simply wakes up to take it in that a particular civil servant is off and another is on. Just like that! To make it more disjointed, Government's policy of clamming up has given birth to a something unwanted and unsavoury: rumours! Present day Gambian society is ridden with the "stuff," and it can't be helped if government keeps doing things willy nilly, leaving the masses to go Sherlock Holmes. No one, unfortunately, can go Holmes here. Rumours does it best. The sackings of Jatta and Badjie has, understandably, got the rumour mill clanging again. 

That the former made bloopers with the economy and that certain economic measures tried were simply Greek and the latter's own was due to a diamond scam at the NIA that The Independent brought to light some months ago. Time is nigh for Jammeh's government to cease the reasonless sackings and tell the masses, on whose votes they are able to comfortably saunter the corridors of power, why so and so has been asked to leave. 

This makes mockery of an administration that has chosen transparency, among other well-coined words, as its buzzword. Sadly, they have shown to be mere cover ups, over the years. 

If government is for the hoi polloi, to demonstrate this and come up with explanations is long overdue. Rumours, we all know, wreck societies. Propounding on it is flogging a dead horse. 

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