NOTE:
This Twenty-Seventh Message to All Gambians is addressed in particular to
the electorate in The Gambia: to all those who are eligible to vote in the
October elections, and to those who may not yet be qualified to vote but who
have a deep interest in the political future of our country.
My Fellow Gambians!
For the past 7 years, we have been witnesses to Yahya Jammeh’s misrule.
This has been characterised by abuse of office, abuse of power, rampant
corruption, illegal detention, massive human rights violations, abject
poverty, intransparency in government, non-accountability, nepotism,
favouritism, deceit, lies and murder: the list goes on and on.
The Gambia is a closely-knit society where we used to live in harmony, and
co-exist in peace, mutual trust and respect. All this is fast disappearing
because of Yahya’s heavy-handedness and "divide and rule" policy. We have
reached the state where suspicion and mistrust of each other prevails, where
blood families are divided, where there are inter-familial and inter-friend
hostilities (even hostility between religious groups).
Jammeh has overseen the ruin of the social fabric of Gambian life. In the
past, one of things we had of which we could be justly proud, was our
ability to live as a small but richly diverse nation, in mutual tolerance
and respect for our differences.
Now everything is changing: Imams have been humiliated by Jammeh;
Priests/Bishops have been humiliated by Jammeh; our parents and brothers and
sisters have been humiliated by Jammeh.
This travesty of a leader has had people arrested illegally, held
incommunicado and without charge. He has arbitrarily dismissed breadwinners
from their jobs, whether governmental, parastatal or in private companies:
even small scale vendors and business people who are trying to make a living
from the diminishing tourist industry have been victimised.
Farmers are paid for their crops with worthless promissory notes: the
poverty in the provinces has worsened to the point that many families now
only eat once a day and they have had to withdraw their children from school
because they can no longer afford to meet school related expenses.
Life is tough for the vast majority of Gambians, while Jammeh’s elite
cronies lavish public money on themselves and their families, they travel
extensively and only in first class; they favour their relatives and
girlfriends in the awarding of scholarships or university places.
There are stories of how our top government officials compete to see who can
spend the most on family ceremonies, on the building of huge and elaborate
compounds, on rich lifestyles. The wives and families of these criminals
get their medical treatment in private Western hospitals, while our own
hospitals and health centres remain without even paracetamol or bedsheets.
Jammeh and his cronies are giving the very land of our country away to their
friends and there is now no proper procedure for obtaining land. People
like Jammeh and Yankuba Touray hand out land on request to their lap dogs.
Jammeh has continued to tamper with our Constitution and makes no secret
that he intends to continue to do this if he wins the elections in October.
There is scant respect for the rule of law, and our judiciary is no longer
judged to be impartial and independent.
Poverty has led to disintegration in society: people are desperate. The
Gambian youth, supposedly the backbone of our economy, are leaving the
country in droves. The foreign embassies are under siege by young Gambians
desperate to get a visa to enter the West. Our young people are driven
abroad to make a decent living for themselves and to support their loved
ones back at home.
Hardship, repression, lack of job opportunities, spiralling inflation, poor
wages are all driving our youngsters away from home. Qualified manpower is
becoming scarce in our homeland because those with qualifications have
sought employment outside The Gambia.
The number of Gambians seeking political asylum in the USA, UK and France is
increasing substantially by the week.
The hardship being faced by most Gambians could have been even worse were it
not for the money that is being sent by family members overseas to help to
sustain loved ones at home. This money from overseas can help to minimise
the sufferings in our midst, but is not a medium or long-term solution to
our economic crisis. The underlying poverty remains, and under Jammeh will
only get worse.
Things are now so bad that there is not one family which has not been
directly affected by these last seven years of misrule by Jammeh and the
APRC. Human rights violations have assumed a systematic pattern: poverty
is chronic: corruption amongst our leaders is a way of life: abuse of
political power and office is sustained.
My Fellow Gambians !
You all have your own experiences to back the truth of all the above: you
are all only too well aware of what Yahya and his regime represents.
But all is not doom and gloom. There could be light at the end of the
tunnel.
It depends on YOU, THE VOTERS.
Elections are fast approaching. This is therefore a critical and decisive
moment in your life.
EACH OF YOUR VOTES WILL COUNT.
The complaining has been done, and it is now time to take positive action:
our destiny really is in our own hands.
We all know the saying that "Almighty God will help those who help
themselves".
If one sees a train coming, and one lies on the track in its path and then
asks God for help, then we all know what will happen !!
In as much as the Opposition leaders have an enormous task ahead, I would
say that YOU the electorate, have an even greater challenge. It is now a do
or die moment.
If you take the right decision and make the right choice, then your future
will be bright. If you, for whatever reason, make the wrong choice by
re-electing Jammeh, then your future will indeed by bleak.
In the coming weeks, I urge you to take a keen interest in the political
campaigning in our country. Listen to what the Opposition has to say:
attend their rallies. Educate yourself to make the correct choice.
On Election Day, get up early and turn out to vote for the Opposition
against Jammeh. If need be, use your vote tactically even if you have to
vote for an opposition candidate whom you do not like. Every vote for the
opposition and not for Jammeh is going to count – EVERY SINGLE VOTE. Let no
one person who has the vote fail to use it, and use it to unseat the
criminal Yahya Jammeh.
The choice is yours.
The decision is yours.
If we are prepared, we can take our destiny into our own hands.
I urge you to be vigilant. Do not be deceived by Jammeh’s supporters who
will stop at nothing to get him re-elected. Be especially careful to put
your vote into the correct box: do not let others persuade you falsely to
put your vote in for Jammeh.
I also urge you to be on your guard against those who attempt to buy your
vote. In the Baddibou and Kiang by-elections, there was hard evidence of
vote buying by the APRC. In exchange for a few dalasis (urgently needed to
buy food or pay house rent or school fees), people were persuaded to give
their free vote away.
By selling your vote, you will have a short-term reward, but this will be
easily and quickly spent, and will do nothing at all to ease our underlying
poverty.
Use your vote wisely. Do not sell it.
Be a thinking voter, and use your own personal knowledge of the terrible
nature of the last seven years to guide your thoughts and your vote.
It will be the Gambian people who will decide on the future of our country
after October 2001.
I pray to God that Gambians will be wise enough to use their votes to usher
in a better and brighter future for all of us. Let us rid our homeland of
miscreants and murderers like Yahya Jammeh.
Amen.
Ebrima Ceesay,
Birmingham, UK
_________________________________________________________________
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