EDITORIAL
DAILY OBSERVER STRANGERS ON RAMPAGE AGAIN -WE CAN SMELL THE SMOKE OF
MARIJUWANA IN THEIR OFFICES
Octoger 14, 2005
Strangers at the Daily Observers are on rampage again. They have picked on
us for no just reasons. They have not only exposed their stupidity, but
their lack of understanding of basic journalistic principles and ethics.
We expect any newspaper that worth it salt to avoid pointing accusing
fingers, since the author's name was not on the said story which was
captioned "NEW OBSERVER MD LINE UP SOME STAFFERS TO BE FIRED"

It is totally outrageous and misleading for the Observer management to
conclude that the said piece was authored by Pa Nderry M'Bai. We have said
it in our rejoinder and will said again. This piece, which seems to have
provoked Dr.Taal and his co sell outs at the Observer was written by one
of our correspondent who happens to be an insider at the Observer. We will
not give names at this hour, since we owed it to our reporter to keep his
identity private.

This is not a bluff, but we have a tape featuring the proceedings of the
said meeting, in which Dr.Taal threatens to sack certain Observer
staffers. For some reasons, we deemed it necessary not to publish the list
of names of individuals targeted to be fired by Dr.Taal. We have the list
and wouldn't mind to make it available to our readers. We expect the
Observer strangers to stop the speculations and address the issues.

Branding us as unpatriotic Gambians bent on destabilising the Gambia, will
not shake us in any way. Our readers knows who are bent on destabilising
The Gambia. It is the Observer, which is undermining our cherished peace,
by showing seeds of discord in the country. You paper is not only engaged
in misinformation campaign, it is also hell bent on legitimising the
Jammeh dictatorship. Your reportage of state events, is one sided with the
sole aim of satisfying your pay masters-the Jammeh administration.

We shall remain resolute and will not be intimidated by your idle
accusations. We at The ALLGAMBIAN can comfortably say that we are more
patriotic than you guys bent on selling the image of Jammeh, who succeeded
in politicising the Observer. The Observer cannot win the confidence of
Gambians with such empty statements without merit. The average Gambian
don't have confidence in Observer or its owner. People don't believe in
your day to day news stories. There is no amount of damage control
campaign that can change the minds of Gambians on Observer's shattered and
discredited image. Your credibility is gone. Calling your paper as the
leading newspaper in The Gambia is a joke. The Observer is the most back
ward newspaper in The Gambia. We expect you to acknowledge this fact and
stop being economical with the truth. It is only the truth that can set
you free. Then Observer stick to the truth and stop the lies and cover up
moves.

Hear them in their rantings again"It is a cardinal rule in journalism that
journalists should write nothing but the truth and Mr M'bai's piece is a
violation of the ethics of our noble profession." Is this statement not an
affront to press freedom? When did the new observer learned about ethics?
Who can Observer management teach ethics? Not The ALLGAMBIAN any way. We
are operating within the ethics of the profession unlike the Observer
which is engaged in junk journalism.

We think the authors of the said Observer letter were in high moods. We
have been reliably informed that the two strangers are big time smokers of
weed or "ganja" if you like. From now on, Observer cleaners or office boys
should be ready to buy more dupe sticks or "chewraye" for their new
bosses. Expect to be polluted by Marijuana smoke, when you walked into
some of these offices. We know the two very well.

We want to inform the two Observer strangers that we cannot be bullied by
their erroneous and misplaced letter. We are drug free and will not listen
to such misguided and unprincipled Jammeh servants. Whether you like or
not we will continue to report the truth. You can censor Observer
reporters but not The ALLGAMBIAN. The ALLGAMBIAN is too much for your boss
Yahya Jammeh. We will continue to expose corruption, no matter who is
affected.

We urge the Observer strangers to know their boundaries and stop tress
passing The ALLGAMBIAN. We are not interested in engaging the Observer
into war of words. We are busy on other important editorial matters and we
need no distraction at this hour. We expect Observer to interview Amadou
Samba and Yahya Jammeh to throw lights on recent revelations regarding the
ownership of their newspaper and not to pick on Pa Nderry or ALLGAMBIAN.
Gambians will be interested to hear Jammeh and Samba commenting on this
subject.

Interestingly, the Observer management cleverly decided to hide behind the
Dr.Taal story to take issues with us. The bottom line is that, you are
angered by our recent publications, in which an Observer insider exposed
the secret behind the observer sale and its real owner.

If your reaction is to cow us down, you must be living in a dream world.
We are determined to publish pieces forwarded to us by the said Observer
insider, who seems to know how the Observer sale was reached. We are
getting feed backs from the heart of the Observer company. We have been
reliably informed that the said revelations angered your bosses. We don't
want to preempt what the remaining write up series lined up for
publication, but we can say that there are more scandalous pieces pending
on the Observer sale. This statement is not intended to scare Jammeh or
Samba in anyway.

As an Editor, my duty is to scrutinise news reports, opinion letters and
commentaries prior publication. We at The ALLGAMBIAN don't believe in
censorship. We believe in allowing our readers to be heard, which is hard
to come by at the Observer today. Views critical of the Jammeh
administration are usually dumped into the trash can. We are trying to
fill the media vacuum created by Observer, since it is shirking its
responsibility as a daily newspaper. Gambians count on us for accurate, up
to date, balance and reliable news. Our last word is "let the new observer
strangers behave and stop the lies and deception campaign." Governments
comes and go, but The Gambia will stay. We rest our case.

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