COUP IN GAMBIA ONE

A British military officer I once met in San Remo
Italy asked me to put the reason why there was a coup
in The Gambia in two words.
"Command breakdown and government complacency," I gave
it to him in five.
The British officer who was very interested in the
military history of The Gambia had been for the weeks
we worked together curiously firing me all sorts of
questions about what made it possible for the junior
officers of the GNA to seized power in 1994.
The story I explained to that gentleman is the one I
wish to share with the G-L readers in this series
entitled COUP IN GAMBIA. It is a story I intend to
tell in the simplest form based on my personal
experience of the coup in The Gambia on the 22nd July
1994, the accidental role I played in it and most
important of all the facts according to what exactly
happened. I may also in this exercise attempt to
periodically express my views or opinion about the
special situations encountered.  Hearing about the
general misconception developed by Gambians and
non-Gambians alike, in the country or outside about
the 1994 coup, coupled with the absolute silence from
those who actually know the facts, compounded by
mainly the lies Yaya and his lackeys have been
peddling about the event, the coup in the final
analysis has now been reduced to one shameless BIG
lie. Those who should have been termed the actual
heroes in that mutinous and criminal operation have
long since been killed or reduced to subservient
nonentities while the cowards who should have been
permanently locked up behinds bars for their
traitorous actions stole the center stage, supported
by intellectual criminals and defended by armed
bandits. However regardless of how strong or deep they
may anchor their vessel of deceit in the divine sea of
life, the wind of truth will someday blow away these
floating evil doers to the shore of reality where the
crew will be exposed in their naked images.  Those
thinking that they could disguise themselves in this
doom-bound vessel enjoying the loot of the
bloodthirsty pirates, encouraging them to shed more
blood for bigger treasure and then disappearing
unnoticed at the final day of reckoning ought to think
twice about that ungodly fate. If Gambians should
think that they could get away with killing innocent
armless children for anything in this world and then
turn it into a political issue, manipulating the laws
to exonerate the guilty murderers, some of them being
so sick to make it a laughing matter in the heart of
the nation then Gambians could as well exempt the
existence of god and the dynamic laws of nature from
life. These knuckleheads cannot learn from the common
saying that no condition is constant except change
itself.
Lets remember Samuel Doe, Emperor Bukasa, Mengistu
Haili Mariam, Edi Amin and Mobutu with their doomed
followers. These leaders blatantly flouted all kinds
of rules, secular and divine, with powers far greater
than the ordinary or with powers which Yayas will
never dream to acquire in this world; leaders who
thought they could get away with any crimes, lies and
deceit perpetrated towards their innocent subjects
until the day of divine intervention dawned on them.
Days that come without warning and often when things
are at their sweetest. Days when the predators are
caught happily licking their blood-dripping fingers
from devouring the flesh of their unfortunate preys.
Day that found them in festive moods when they the
least suspected that the judgement day is indeed here.
That day in the Gambia will soon come. The day Yaya
and his callous follows will know that children in the
kingdom of god are after all real angels and that no
hoodlum would get away with killing them out of share
madness.  Call it the big time day of reckoning.
Having said that, I will now turn to my new topic,
thanks to loony Paul. Evidently, if Gambians had
developed the special tradition of recording and
referring to their history as time and events unfold
before us from period to another, we would have
realized that the same situation that led to the
abortive coup of 1981 more or less recurred in 1994.
And perhaps that would have helped in averting the
1994 calamity.
For instance by the time Kukoi lured the Field Force
into his nightmarish coup in 1981, it could be
remembered that there was a total breakdown of command
and control in Depot, Fajara Barracks. The late Eku
Mahony was strangely shot and killed by the late
constable Mustapha Danso the previous year 1980; also
the late Commander Bojang was suspected of complicity
in what was thought to be a deadly factional conflict
among their subordinates leading to one of his men
killing his command counterpart. Bojang was retired or
weeded from the force but had refused to vacate his
official residence when asked to do so by government.
The atmosphere was as a result charged with heavy
gossip of a coup planning at the depot, yet government
by its actions showed little concern about the
potential explosion facing the nation. Nothing was
more important at that critical time in government's
agenda than the security crisis in the Depot that
required immediate and total attention. Whether there
was even a national security crisis management organ
in the country for such unexpected emergencies was
another thing we may never know. However if there was
one, I don't think it was official or effective or
even known to the Gambians. Historians may one day
have to help us with this one. Anyway I still think
that the government was rather complacent with the
situation until Kukoi stuck, surprised and shocked the
whole world. A civilian taking command of the county's
major security force using its personnel in a coup
attempt was unimaginable and disgraceful. Thank god
there was foreign intervention to stop Kukoi;
otherwise the crisis that had erupted could have
pretty well degenerated into full-blown civil war. And
I still firmly believe that what The Gambia escaped in
Kukoi 's failure in 1981 was the exact leadership we
got in Yaya's success in 1994. In other words, I think
Kukoi in 1981 was going to be what we got in Yaya in
1994. But it was still possible that Kukoi might have
been a little more genuine. Nothing could be like
Yaya.
Another critical factor often neglected but very
important in command stability but was and is still
lacking in The Gambia's security institutions is the
personality and caliber of persons recruited and
entrusted with the defense of the nation. The
westerners that introduced modern military concepts in
The Gambia built their own forces from men and women
committed to the fundamental course of defending their
national sovereignty because of the stake they have in
the society. They are generally well cultured,
properly educated and tested to meet the set
standards; they have self-esteem and definitely
understand that the country equally belong to them in
the very way it belongs to any president. None of
these virtues prevailed in the Field Force where the
service men were literally social outcasts in terms of
origin, education, social status, family background
and self-esteem.. So instead of having fine warriors
prepared to lay their lives for the defense of their
nation, we ended up grooming angry jealous armed men
full of hate and destructive tendencies ready to
follow any deviant or criminal into a path of national
destruction. Rebellious soldiers in uniform or
civilian bandits, whose ultimate target is to destroy
rather than construct, often are the organizers of
coups. The Field Force behind Kukoi was without doubt
armed men madly inclined to help destroy The Gambia
they had no stake in building or protecting.
A similar situation was re-created in the GNA in 1994.
There was a command break down when the late General
Abubacarr Dada was sent a successor from Nigeria
Colonel Gwadebeh to command the Gambia Army and the
former refused to hand over the seat to the latter.
That conflict was what actually undermined all the
credibility and respects the GNA officers had for
their Nigerian mentors. The Nigerians who came and
started an impressive and very good work in the
beginning, making all of us to believe that their army
and serving men were superior to us in every way of a
military establishment suddenly started acting like
desperate men ready to go after each others jugular
veins in order to stay in The Gambia rather than go
back home. Everything they taught us about ethical
standards, moral values, esprit de corps, decency,
integrity and military courage were violated one after
the order by the feuding commanders and their divided
allies with no regards to its effect on those of us
looking up to them as role models.
The situation was so hopeless that in the end one
could sense the irreparable damage the Nigerians had
done to their command and control powers over the GNA
officers. Even if there had been no coup, the
Nigerians would not have had it the easy way they did
with the GNA officers before.
The actual problem started around March or April 1994
when the Point News paper (always the Point) quoted a
Nigerian newspaper that had published an identified
successor for General Dada. It was stated that the
late General Sani Abacha had already chosen the man.
Dada was very furious about the Point's publication
demanding that government should punish the Point
publishers for the wrong information they published.
By General Dada who was appointed by General Babangida
when the latter was still in power, his contract made
appointment  permanent commander of the GNA.
Furthermore, he had believed that the men he brought
along to run the Gambia Army, about eighty of them,
were directly under his charge, meaning that he could
change or even recommend their dismissal whenever he
wanted. But for him, he was untouchable and should
only leave the Gambia Army after the Nigeria-Gambia
contract to train the GNA was over. It was a two-year
contract that should have been completed in 1994,
although the Nigerians had succeeded in convincing the
government that the officers in the army were too
incompetent to be handed over the command after two
years only. It was another story most of us could not
understand.
Anyhow when government put it to Dada that they were
not aware of any successor identified in Nigeria but
that they could not do anything to the Point
Publishers either because they were private or
committed nothing illegally, Dada relented but would
not forget.
In May, the official letter from Nigeria for the
replacement of General Dada by Colonel Gwadebeh
arrived at the ministry of defense. Dada could not
understand it and expected the Gambia government to
stand by his side and disallow the colonel from
replacing him. But government made it clear to him
that the changes effected from Nigeria was beyond
their means to alter. Dada felt betrayed by the
government for their indifference to his problem. He
also realized that his most trusted men brought to the
Gambia to help him, men he painstakingly picked from
the Nigerian armed forces and provided them with pay
ten or more times than their earnings at home had also
shifted their loyalty to the new commander.
Colonel Gwadebe came anyway.
Devastated altogether, Dada partially accepted defeat
but insisted that he would not leave the Gambia until
he had audience with former President Jawara. That was
more or less refusing to hand over to Gwadebe unless
he was allowed to meet the president.
Government officials especially at the ministry of
defense felt Dada should not be allowed to meet the
president when the vice president who was the minister
of defense was available. Dada would not settle for
anything other than what he wanted-meet the president.
Gwadebe on the other hand was lodged at Kairaba Hotel
waiting for Dada to hand over before he could assume
the command position. That is standard army procedure.
One could not succeed another person under normal
circumstances without a formal handing and taking over
process completed.
By the middle of May however, it was clear to all GNA
officers and most other ranks that the Nigerian
command fabric had crumbled and the government did not
seem to take its danger very seriously.
Like in the past, it should have been the most
important issue in the government national agenda,
needing immediate and total attention. But I think Sir
Dawda at the heat of things took his annual leave and
left for Britain to spend about a month there.
Dada decided to wait for his return. There was no
serious commander anymore.
In the mean time however, the Nigerians, were still
trying to make things appear as much normal as they
could make the situation look in the army. An exercise
was organized at Kudang area, code named operation
"Nying Doekuo". The whole army was involved in an
exercise of tactical planning and operation of various
combat missions.
It was there that the junior officers first met to
discuss the need to get rid of the Nigerians from the
country. Yes it was all about organizing a
demonstration against the Nigerians to leave and go
back home.
Those present at that meeting were the late Lieutenant
Basiru Barrow, Captain Alagie Kanteh (second
lieutenant then), Captain Alpha Kinteh (second
lieutenant then) Captain Edward Singhateh (second
lieutenant then) and Captain Sana Sabally (second
lieutenant then). Anyway before the meeting ended,
Alagie Kanteh came up with the proposal of a coup
instead of a demonstration. They all agreed, electing
Barrow to be the leader. Both Kanteh and Singhateh had
told this story to several soldiers after the coup.
Captain Singhateh in fact put it to all the men
present at state house on the 22nd July that these
five men were the actual planners of the coup and that
even Yaya and Sadibou Haidara were not part of it, but
were invited to join them when three of the original
conspirators withdrew their membership at the last
minutes. These three were Barrow, Kanteh and Kinteh.
According to the original plan, former president
Jawara was to be arrested with his cabinet ministers
at Yundum Airport on the day he was to return from his
leave in England. Army officers of the rank of captain
and above were all to be arrested and executed by
firing squad together with all government ministers.
That may have been the reason why the first team
cracked. Barrow, Kinteh and Kanteh perhaps were not
prepared to go that extreme. Anyway according to
Barrow who explained himself after Singhateh accused
the three of them of betraying the course, he had
given his reason of withdrawal as being inadequate
timing. Barrow said he wanted more time for better
planning preferably January 1995 instead of July 1994.

However the bottom line is that Edward Singhateh and
Sana Sabally actually spearheaded the coup from start
to end. They were also the operational leaders, Sana
taking Bravo Company from Captain Sonko who was forced
to join Charlie Company and Singhateh taking the
leadership of that unit-Charlie Company. Colonel
Badjie was the company commander of Charlie Company,
although when they took it from him they spared him
the trauma and ordeal they subjected Captain Sonko in
throughout the operation.
Yaya did not mean much to them, the very naivete in
Sana and Singhateh that allowed Jammeh to join them
and eventually stole the show from their hands They
probably felt that Jammeh the Gendarmerie officer
entrusted by the Nigerians to police the army as the
head of the military police wing was nothing but a
boastful wimp. Jammeh was never seen firing a shot as
a soldier, never seen running in any exercise, was
below average in written and verbal communication, did
not know how to write or interpret operation orders
and lacked everything that characterized a true
officer or soldier. All that could be associate with
Yaya in uniform was the pistol he always carried (and
most certainly could not use it properly) and his
endurance to carry various horns, roots cowries and
animal skins all over his body in the name of "jujus".
(I think I once explained to you that Yaya shamelessly
decorated himself at McCarthy Square Banjul with
ECOMOG medals as if he had served in Liberia's
peacekeeping mission.  Some of us startled by the
ceremony thought the joke was accepting the medal as
an honorary award until he appeared on GAMTV in
Kaninlai explaining to some school children his
peacekeeping role in Liberia. The guy is so sick in
fabricating lies that sometimes I see his metal
maturity as that of a six-year old.)
The fact that he was the head of the military police
and the young officers planned the coup without
serious regards to his unit or presence was indicative
of how much they disrespected him. It was a matter of
telling him to join them or get his butt whipped. He
knew better.
I don't know what he had lied to the Nigerians to
accept his transfer from the Gendemarie to the GNA in
1992, but they must have selected the wrong person to
police the army for them. It was a major mistake from
Dada.
However that same disrespect they had for Yaya was
what led Sana and Singhateh to vote him as their
leader on the 24th July 1994 in the presence of
Captain Mamat Cham. Again they thought he could be put
there as a ceremonial leader while they run the show
in the background. As for Sana, up the day he was
framed and bundled up to jail with Haidara, he had
treated Yaya with contempt and less importance.
But with tact and treachery, the rule of the game at
the time, Yaya played the two heavy weights against
each other allying with Edward to destroy Sana and
Haidara. That catapulted Edward from the number four
positions to the vice-chairman's seat. He did not know
that the master of treachery was on his tail next.
I hope my readers are also evaluating the
personalities in the drama. While doing so please
consider the Field Force and the characters in the
Depot- men with low self-esteem, dehumanized by
poverty and greed and transformed into treacherous and
destructiveness souls.
Anyway by the time the transition was over, Yaya had
disintegrated the foundation of the original coup team
except in the case of Singhateh. But Singhateh's turn
was in the making.
It was Landing Sanneh and the late Almamo Manneh who
one day challenged Edward at the state house on Yaya's
orders to shoot him if he tried to enter the building
again armed. The vice chairman could not understand it
but soon realized that it was the final signal to show
him that the game of playing equals with Yaya was
over. He knew better. Before long the high-speed
champion of the coup was reduced to a nodding follower
of Yaya endorsing his lies, ignoring his faults,
treating him like the saint who led them, the lost
souls, into the coup crusade and all what not.
Almamo Manneh is now lying six feet deep thanks to
Yaya. Landing Sanneh is still in jail waiting to be
tried for almost a year now after being accused of
coup attempt with Almamo Manneh.
The current survivors are ordinary followers, praise
singers and boot-lickers sometimes claiming to be the
warriors in 1994. Sir Dawda Jawara's closest
bodyguards like Musa Jammeh are today Yaya's worst hit
men. The vicious circle of dogs eating dogs continue
to prevail. That's coup in the Gambia parts one.

We will look at part two next week.


Ebou Colly


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