Mr Sidibeh thanks for what I will call first class information about events folding back home. It seems Gambia is heading as a fail state. It is greed that have takeover our country Gambia is a captive state. Reading your comments indicate a devastating indictment of the corruption to which our political leaders have succumbed. Another state of fear is the erosion of religious tolerant may God guide our Nation.
Best regards!
Abdoukarim Sanneh

Momodou S Sidibeh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
...But Gambia's population density is one of the highest in Africa.
Arable land is small and it is uncontrollably being decommissioned out
of agricultural production. I raised the issue with a senior government
official, who simply responded as a matter of fact, that there is no
planning

LAND GRABBING

Yet it is swathes of fertile farmland that is routinely sized up and cut
out for dwellings. Amidst all the frenzy, it is one of the commonest
harbingers of conflict: We are all familiar with the showdown between
Taff Construction and the people of Brufut. But there are a myriad of
others, less publicised conflicts such as the violent showdown that
resulted with the incarceration of many villagers from Jambangjaly; the
ongoing(?) court case between the people of Kartong and some Bajo Kunda
elders in Gunjur, and that between the people of Kiti and President
Jammeh. There are fraud cases where land owners sold a particular plot
to numerous buyers; and instances involving plots that are stolen and
then resold to the highest bidder by chiefs who turn out to be
unmitigated crooks. I have heard about cases where fraudsters use
Microsoft Word to produce exact replicas of Certificates of Ownership
issued by the area councils. So the Brikama Area Council changed
tactics, making sure that such certificates are signed in red by a
supervisor(?) of lands who simultaneously accords each certificate with
a unique Item number, to be entered in the surveys registry - a kind of
database that maps a name to a particular Item number and site plan.
The incredible struggle for land that I witnessed at the Brikama Area
Council is disturbing, to put it very mildly. A surveyor confirmed that
there tiny office is always in a state of invasion. It is packed with
applicants processing site maps to be registered before they obtain a
certificate of ownership which allows them to begin construction work on
their plots. So there is a permanent construction boom all over the
place. Foreign investors, Gambian workers and professionals abroad,
sarahuli and fula businessmen, "ashobi" mammies (who grew rich through
import of clothing from China and Dubai or by marketing fish and other
Gambian consumer goods in the west), property developers, are all
engaged in the grinding contest for land, to own it, develop it, settle
on it. Some use it as fixed capital and as a secure source of income.
Others buy land for pure speculation. They develop it, sell it at 100
percent profit, and move on to the next piece of real estate, often
using the services of private agents. In hard times, there are always
willing sellers, usually desperate farmers who, facing ruin, procure
capital by selling the last thing they own. The construction industry is
undoubtedly one of the most lucrative in the country. Both Gambian and
foreign-owned construction and property development firms compete for
contracts: Govinda and Sons, Boto Construction, Gigo Construction ltd.,
Fams, Kana and Sons Construction, Ocean Properties, Value Engineering,
Taff Construction and myriads of self-employed contractors, masons, who
with the advantage of experience and skill negotiate building contracts
for themselves. But as mentioned, there is little or no planning.
While a property developer like Taff Construction can negotiate for huge
chunks of real estate with dwellings, paved roads, school, mosque, and
utility supplies all planned professionally, land that is developed on
the outskirts of say, Serrekunda usually add to the uncontrolled
expansion of the town while overloading further, already inadequate
water supplies and the available electric grid capacity. From Old
Jeshwang southwards to Sukuta and eastwards to Tabokoto, one simply
traverses a single sprawling township covering all of Serrekunda,
Nemakunku, Wellingara, Sanchaba Sulay Jobe, Kotu, Dippakunda, Kololi,
Manjai and Bakoteh. Chicago, Monte Carlo, Piccadilly are all labelled
after particular areas inside Serrekunda or in one of its numerous
suburbs. Few of the roads to these suburbs from central Serrekunda are
paved but are mostly wide streets with huge ditches covered in sand and
uncollected, garbage. Drivers unfamiliar with the territory are easy
prey for six, seven year old kids who eke a subsistence form the chaos.
They would dig large holes in the sand, create sporadic dunes around
them and gleefully watch unsuspecting drivers get stuck. You would
disembark your car, beg for help and they would rush to your rescue.
You will be so grateful that you would compensate them with a ten dalasi
note. That is enough for a whole "taapa laapa", which is sliced in the
middle and stuffed with mayonnaise, potatoes, and a greasy kind of
chocolate cream. This is the popular lunch or supper for urban kids in
Gambia.

As mentioned earlier, driving from Sukuta to Serrekunda is a nightmare
of a safari ride. At the Sukuta junction from Brusubi, the road assumes
a 100% degradation of quality. The road here is almost exclusively used
by "gele-gele", large minivans so old and rusty they ought to have been
commissioned out of traffic but are fiercely maintained on the roads by
their owners. Every one dalasi counts. The gele-gele deposits you at
Tippa garage, just across the Bakoteh bridge. The notorious garbage dump
is just a stone throw away, and it is constantly smouldering. Smoke from
it is not dense, but it settles over the entire suburb as a huge
blanket, poisoning the air and irritating lungs and eyes.

RELIGIOUS REVIVAL
One thing that is impossible to miss is the preponderance of mosques and
churches all over the entire municipality of Kanifing, though the latter
are much less numerous than the former. Muslim/Arabic schools have
multiplied and girls and young women with head dresses (hijab) are a
pretty common sight. But I also observed that many young men seem to
have become more religious than they previously were, and most of the
mosques are equipped with loudspeaker systems to better summon believers
to prayer. The stentorian calls of the muezzin, especially for the early
morning (fajr) prayer is an obvious inconvenience to non-muslims (and to
many muslims as well) but no one hardly complains. Not openly, at any
rate, except for one European settler. According to my cousin, Buba,
this middle-aged westerner found the frequent loud calls to prayer so
disturbing that he walked to the mosque and begged the Imam to instruct
the muezzin to lower the output volume from the speakers. He complained
that he is forced to wake up from his sleep as early as 5 a.m everyday.
Well, the imam did not take his plea into consideration but explained to
him that the louder the system, the better for the faithful! To
everyone's amazement, every time the afternoon prayer is called, the man
would march to the street corner, place his hands on top of his head and
begin weeping and wailing at the top of his voice. People laughed
themselves to tears in disbelief!
Many muslims complain that Sunday mass and other services from some
churches (where the congregation is mostly nigerian and other immigrant
groups) are even noisier. The services always end in drumming and
singing, on very high decibels.
[I learnt that some three ramadans ago, eid -el-fitr fell on a Sunday.
While muslims were at the prayer ground they felt genuinely disturbed by
the drumming and singing from a nearby church. In spite of numerous
appeals for a calmer service to the priest, a compromise could not be
reached. So the muslims went to attack members of the congregation.
Fortunately, by the time they reached the church, the entire
congregation had melted away in fear].
But what I found as a matter of interest, is the wave of muslim
missionaries from the middle east or north Africa that make house to
house calls to recruit young muslims into more militant participation in
the religion. They are called the "maraca", and most of them are thought
to come from Morocco. They come as "missionaries", present their
credentials to local imams and live practically in the mosque. They can
be seen in groups going from one compound to the next. I have also met
young Gambians who dream of nothing other than receiving religious
instruction in Pakistan. All of these social tendencies perhaps are
matters of grave concern given that most Gambians would stick to a
moderate form of Islam that upholds religious tolerance as a basic
principle of cultural life. There are many reasons that one can advance
as the causes of the upsurge of religious interest amongst Gambians. One
is simply that material depravation compels people to seek refuge in
spiritualism. And the present government has failed to lighten the
burden of depravation for the great majority of the population. Poverty
might make people pray harder, but it also forces people to abdicate
their moral responsibilities towards the rest of society. The levels of
violent crime, rampant dishonesty, spectacular forms of robbery, armies
of pickpockets (at ferry terminals, they say) have all become legion.
Added to these is the shameless stealing of public funds, the vicious
corruption in public and business life, the open begging by even
security personnel at the airport. People are desperately poor, yet they
would do almost anything to pretend otherwise. Some go about town with a
spoon in their pocket, just in case good fortune guides them to a naming
ceremony or a funeral - where there is free food. In contrast, ceremony
organisers are increasingly soliciting the services of catering
companies because most of the meat and condiments are stolen by cooks,
if the preparations are done at home. The neighbours must not know that
you have nothing to cook today, so you light upt a fire under your
cooking pot anyway, even if all you are boiling is water! If you hang
your laundry to dry you have to sit and watch unless you want them to
slowly disappear over the fence. People will steal your bricks(!) unless
you have somebody watch them. Some even dare still from the President!
While in Gambia in April, a comic strip was in heavy rotation all over
town. Just before Tobaski, the president, provided a large number of
salesmen with hundreds of sheep to be sold at cut down prices as a way
of mitigating the financial burden on many Moslem families. One such
salesman quickly sold all is herd of more than twenty sheep, packed a
bag, and took off with the President's money! Feeling himself as victim
of a rude scam, Mr. President went on national television to deliver a
stern warning to the fugitive, who had by then apparently disappeared
from Gambian soil].

The mobile revolution has taken Gambia by storm. Even grandmothers now
would ask for a cell phone, even where they have problems paying the
electricity and water bill. If you have one, you are a princess. But if
you have two, you show everybody that you are the local queen (or king
for that matter). Cell phone theft is an epidemic, now earning thieves
stiff sentences in jail.
[My banker friend thought he mysteriously lost his cell phone. When he
eventually called the number a voice simply explained to him that he had
been looking for a phone for over a year, until finally god provided him
with one, and that he obviously would not get his phone back. When he
called again, the voice warned him, "bu ma yabb!"].
Worse is that the mobile telephone operators skim huge profits from the
pockets of Africans. This is one reason why investments in Africa give
the greatest returns in profits than anywhere else on earth. Africell
pre-paid cards, for instance are valid for only two months. It simply
means that you HAVE TO use your credit (and buy another again) within
that period or forfeit it. In Sweden prepaid credits have a validity of
one year. Added to that, its network is often jammed for most of the day
(from 14.00 - 23.00), so that one is forced to place calls in the
mornings or late at night. Despite the lousy service, the company has
the temerity to apologise every time your call fails to get through.
Network extension work is the culprit, they say. But they would not
imagine extending the life span of the credit card as compensation! This
is the sort of unethical exploitation consumers must organise against.
But in Gambia, they do not exist(?). Similarly, even the middle classes
complain about unpayable electricity and water bills. But most of them
simply buy their own generators from MP Trading, an Indian(?) owned
hardware superstore on Kairaba Avenue. The poor do not have that option,
and are too busy being hungry to think of organising a consumer boycott
of Nawec, as a way to force down prices.

THE POWER ELITE

So everyone is busy, like worker termites, to make ends meets even when
there are no ends in the first place. There is a constant debilitating
class struggle, that some economist will tell you, drives the engine of
growth. But in Gambia, this engine grinds to rubble the dreams and
dignity of much of the population. The wheels keep spinning primarily
because it has been legitimised by a power elite, whose representation
of public hopes, whose very existence as symbols of class and power, the
people see as the ultimate reflection of their own aspirations. There is
thus a general absence of outrage, especially when there is an endless
supply willing executioners of every plot or policy hatched at State
House or Kanilai. Because most of the ministers are nominated
technocrats, President Jammeh hardly incurs any political backlash from
any constituency when these ministers are sent packing like failed
students. And they keep on coming, pulled in by the allure of office and
the spoils of power.
To be addressed as minister, to travel first class, to hold council with
the President, to be part of his numerous entourages, to have a personal
chauffeur at your behest, to represent and radiate power with all its
mysteries is not a petty, negligible vocation. Most men and women will
kill for it. And indeed many will abandon more lucrative executive
positions just for a momentary bask in the floodlights of official
power. The very call from the president is intoxicating. Few will eschew
any second thoughts, and all doubts and moments of indecision vanish at
a wink. Opportunism sets in, like rigor mortis, numbing every bit of
sense that was once so deeply repulsive to corrupt behaviour. They
persuade themselves that this must be destiny fulfilled, the answer to
all secret prayers, the highpoint of eclipsing jealous, and now
insignificant rivals; becoming minister is the ultimate job in the land,
the office they were born to occupy. A power perspective holds sway over
their representation of themselves, and this facilitates the
rationalisation of ones conduct. You convince yourself that this was
what the revolution was all about, that you must have exceptional
qualities (else, why would you have been called in the first place) and
therefore capable of affecting historical processes; that you can indeed
make significant contributions and even cure all that is diseased in the
party's policy and the president's outlook; that history would prove you
right. One convinces oneself that the call to official duty overrides
everything else; that one must not only answer up when called but it is
in fact a national duty to do so; the mission of a minister is foremost
to serve the nation and in an environment where almost everything is
going wrong, it becomes a mission to save the country. That is a job
more important than what Barclays or ADB will ever pay you for. All
those ideas and theories scooped up through years of university training
take instant flight; escaping into the esoteric world of books.
Ensconced in the virtues of office, they seldom imagine the perils of
office, and like true decadent servants one routinely hears
well-educated ministers echoing so much ego-driven nonsense over Gambian
television. From the murder of Ousman Koro Ceesay through the April 2000
massacre to the gangsterist elimination of Deyda Hydara, it has always
been some secretary of state who appeals for calm, who supplicates the
public for information, who questions the logic of obvious government
complicity before the President's poorly veiled insults, masked as moral
indignation over these crimes, crackles over the airwaves.

All rational calculations, obvious reconnections with reality that the
present government is not serving the national interest, that the job of
minister has been transformed into a mere anecdote, that his regime
presided over the murder of more than a dozen Gambian youth, that all
his ministers past and present have in the course of their tenure of
office become pathological cowards, without a mind of their own, all
these facts escape the calculations of the man called upon to become the
next power broker. Oh, indeed there are exceptions!
In the public psyche the president has become synonymous with the state.
He buys buses for schools, funds pilgrims to Mecca, openly buys votes,
spreads largesse to footballers, personally intervenes in the economy to
effect prices - our own ubiquitous George Soros, denies oppositional
constituencies access to development aid and publicly financed projects,
calls our most respected political leaders donkeys, fires and hires
senior government officials and ministers as often as Imelda Marcus
changed shoes (she had three thousand pairs), has his fingers and toes
in every lucrative business in the land: construction, transport, land
speculation, sand-mining, import-and export of rice, tourism, currency
speculation (he owns a mountain of treasury bonds), and farming! In
spite of all his Billahi Wallahi Tallahi, all he could imagine to fight
corruption is to send some of his ministers to a commission.

Under such circumstances, not to support NADD in its drive to defeat the
APRC regime, is a betrayal more severe than the tyranny it seeks to
unseat.


Cheers
Sidibeh.

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