My Fellow Gambians!

Clearly, The Gambia is at a crossroads:  it is in a decisive period of its
history and, depending on the people, will either head further into chaos,
or be rescued for a brighter future.

Gambians are now confronted with the immediate task of saving their country
– of taking it back from the hands of its hijackers, before it heads for
further mayhem.  Gambians are now challenged to be more proactive, to take
the powers-that-be to task, to take their own destiny into their own hands.

The country has reached a point where the damage is almost irreparable.
Under Yahya Jammeh, our nation has been brought to the verge of ruin.  Every
sector of Gambian life has been destroyed by Jammeh and his thugs.  The
economy, the education sector, agriculture, health services,
telecommunications, foreign relations, the judiciary – all are on the point
of devastation.  It will be a Herculean task to repair the damage.

Who in his or her right mind, can deny the fact that Jammeh’s rule is
characterised by repression, corruption, nepotism, tribalism, tyranny,
incompetence and illegalities of every sort?

People are no longer appointed to their jobs because of their good
qualifications and relevant experience.  Their ethnicity and sycophancy are
the key factors in their appointments to post.

Eight years ago, Jammeh seized power promising accountability, transparency
and probity. Today these slogans are empty words, and have been dumped on
the garbage piles by the regime.

Secrecy in government, lack of accountability, lack of probity:  all have
reached an unprecedented high.  Jammeh, Baba Jobe, Lang Conteh, Amadou
Samba, Tarik Musa, Yankuba Touray, Abdoulai Kujabi and their ilk, control
The Gambia as if it is their own personal property.

Each of these miscreants has stolen, and continues to steal, public money to
the point that their greed is such that it could persuade them to sell the
country itself to the highest bidder in order to fill their own pockets.

These people are criminals, and let them be quite sure that one day soon,
they will be held to account for their crimes against The Gambia and Gambian
citizens.

Jammeh is a liar of the worst kind:  he makes empty promises.  Where is the
electrification of 95% of our country promised for Year 2000 ?  Where are
the wage increases for public servants ?  Where is the payment for our
farmers’ groundnuts ?  Where is prosperity ?  Where is peace and justice
within our country ?

Today our agricultural sector is facing severe problems, and what does
Jammeh do ?  Well, he scapegoats the former Minister of Agriculture Hassan
Sallah and blames the chaos on him !  Who is kidding whom ???!! The
deterioration in our agricultural sector can be laid fairly and squarely at
Jammeh’s own feet.

It is time for Gambians to wake up to the reality of life under Jammeh.
This man does not have what it takes to lead us in the twenty-first century.
  This is a man who cannot run his own house, never mind a country !

Under Jammeh, prices have sky-rocketed:  a bag of cement is more than 100
Dalasis;  a  bag of rice over 250 Dalasis;  a bag of sugar (if you can get
it) over 400 Dalasis:  a small can of Peak milk 7 Dalasis:  taxi fares up
again:  a journey from Talinding-Kujang to Banjul via Westfield Clinic for 7
Dalasis one way.  Every week, the amount our thrifty housewives need for
fish money increases.

The majority of Gambians cannot honestly say that they and their families
eat well and live well in these terrible days ?  Only cronies of Jammeh and
his criminals have a comfortable life, and they are paying for it with their
decency and with their souls.

The unemployment rate continues to rise, and our vast numbers of young
unemployed folk in particular are suffering.  Even those enterprising
youngsters who try to support their families by frequenting the tourist
areas and earning a few Dalasis there, are now branded as "bumsters" and are
being harassed, beaten, arrested and illegally forced out of public areas by
the government.

Shame on Jammeh and his henchmen !  They have let down a whole generation of
young Gambians and condemned them to poverty or even worse, to crime.

The crime rate continues to spiral upwards, and we can no longer blame
crimes on "foreigners". We need only to read the Court reports to know that
many Gambians are now being found guilty of a range of misdemeanours.

Nothing is working in The Gambia:  except of course, for those decent and
honest citizens who struggle to keep themselves and their extended families
fed, clothed, sheltered, educated and well.

Without the vast sums remitted weekly and monthly to the country from
Gambians and friends of The Gambia throughout the world, many more families
would face disaster. But let us not forget those Gambian families who do not
have a breadwinner in the Diaspora:  how do they manage to survive ?

The Gambian economy has been so badly mismanaged that Jammeh has just
yesterday, banned the Finance Minister Famara Jatta and members of his team,
from travelling outside The Gambia, until the Ministry can get its act
together.  Every day, the economy is deteriorating.

People like Baba Jobe, Lang Conteh and Tarik Musa bring in goods worth
millions of Dalasis, without paying one single butut in tax or customs duty.
  Baba Jobe alone owes Customs more than 30 million Dalasis, according to
government records !  People who know Baba Jobe can likewise avoid paying
customs duties.  This source of Customs revenue, once so lucrative to our
country, has dried up in the avalanche of "free" imports for friends of the
regime.

Lang Conteh is running the Central Bank of The Gambia as his own:  he
controls all foreign currency, and takes the money to his and Baba Jobe’s
Money Shop on Kairaba Avenue.  What do they care about the rapidly devaluing
Dalasis ??  They are the ones who are making thousands of Dalasis worth of
profit from ordinary Gambians’ economic misery.

The land scams which have taken place recently, especially in the Tourist
Development Area, have netted Jammeh and his cronies millions.  What do
Jammeh and his kind care about the true owners of the land ?  They sell it
to the highest bidder.  Shame on them.

With regard to the Civil Service, standards have dropped to an all time low.
  The incompetence is unbelievable.  Abdulai Kujabi and Yahya Jammeh appoint
people based on their ethnicity and unquestioning support of their regime,
and now never take into account the skills, qualifications, experience and
dedication of their appointees.

Jammeh continues to play the Islamic card, but his insincerity is well known
to all of us. The Gambia is constitutionally a secular state, but recent
Western intelligence reports which I have seen personally, now categorise
The Gambia as an Islamic state.  Jammeh is using Islam as a cover for lining
his own pockets, and he is aligning our supposedly secular nation with
fundamentalist states.

Clearly, Jammeh has damaged our country, and if he remains at the helm, then
there will be worse to come.

It is vital that Gambians become proactive in defence of their country.  I
agree with Kebba Dampha’s point that UDP supporters should converge on the
police station where Darboe is illegally held and demand the release of this
Opposition leader.

There has to be a direct challenge against Jammeh’s illegal acts.  If the
government is allowed to get away with Darboe’s arrest, then everyone is
vulnerable.

As for the APRC members of parliament:  well, shame on them for having
passed a law which allows the state to remand anyone charged with murder to
be denied bail if the trial is unreasonably delayed.  This is the law which
means that Darboe is held on the trumped up murder charge.

These MPs serve as rubber stampers for Jammeh’s rule.  Let them be quite
sure that one day soon they will be held to account for their actions, and
brought to justice themselves. Today they bury their heads in the sands of
sycophancy:  tomorrow Gambian citizens will demand restitution from them.

We are all aware that Jammeh himself is a coward:  his fear brings about his
massive overreactions in every sphere of life.  If Gambians were to
challenge him openly and without fear, Jammeh would step backwards.

Of course, I urge Gambians to remain law abiding, but if their rights and
liberties are constantly eroded and infringed, then Gambians should make
their grievances known by means of peaceful demonstration and public
challenge.

The Gambian people can do a lot to change the situation in The Gambia, but
to be truly effective, they need to be guided and organised in order to take
their destiny fully into their own hands.

This is where the role played by an effective Opposition is so crucial.
There are challenges to be taken up both by the Opposition leaders and their
parties, and by the citizens of The Gambia.

The levels of injustice in our country have reached new heights:  people are
arrested without due cause:  they are held incommunicado and without charge.

Pause for a minute and reflect on the plight of people like Dumo Saho,
Momodou Marenah, Ebrima Yarbo, Lt Omar Darbo, Lt Lalo Jaiteh.  For how long
have these men being wrongly detained ?  For how long have they been kept
from their wives and families ?  For how long have they languished in
appalling conditions in our prisons ?  For how long is this terrible state
of affairs going to be allowed to prevail ??

I challenge every Gambian to send a protest letter to Jammeh, copied to
international organisations such as Amnesty International, the UN, the
European Union, the African Union, the British Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, the US State Department.  I urge you to demand the release of all
those wrongly imprisoned detainees.  I urge you to call for a restoration of
full human rights for our citizens.

We Gambians should be mounting a public relations campaign against Jammeh
and his regime.  Let us enlighten our citizens as well as the international
community about the realities of Yahya Jammeh.

I recently attended a seminar where one of the speakers spoke of his
amazement in encountering so many talented and skilled Gambians working in
highly placed posts throughout the world.  Wherever he went, he met with
competent and hardworking  Gambians  working for many well-known
institutions.  When he went on a field trip to The Gambia however, he was
horrified at the lack of skilled Gambians on the home work front.  He met
with incompetents, mismanagers, and lack-lustre leaders.

Our best citizens are getting out of the country and making a new life
overseas.  The speaker cited the case of Dr Lamin Sise, the chief Legal
Adviser to the UN Secretary General.  A man of Lamin Sise’s calibre, skills
and character is desperately needed at home in The Gambia, but there is
nothing to draw this man home.

In The Gambia of today, Ministries are understaffed or filled with feather
weights.

I urge my Fellow Gambians to act on behalf of our beloved nation.  I urge
you all to challenge this dreadful regime and its leader.  I urge you to
work for peaceful change in The Gambia.  I urge our opposition parties to
lead the people in the challenges which face them.

Unless we act together, and act now, then our nation will slip even further
into despair and degradation.

Let us unite against our common enemy, Yahya Jammeh, and let us lead the
country into a brighter future for us all.

God Save The Gambia.


Ebrima Ceesay
Birmingham, UK


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