Liars, Damn Lies and The Man 
There are lies, damn lies, being spewed about The Man, a great leader for The Gambia, Africa and the Third World. But let me explain first how the lies began and how I met one of those original liars at a time when The Man was just an unknown soldier. 
It was in August 1994 when I got a telephone call from The Gambia. A relative of a Gambian former minister, whom I had met in London the previous year, informed me that the Gambian government had been overthrown and could I please send the ex-minister’s family some money to buy rice since he was in jail. 
“How do I do that”, I asked? I was unsure whether I should send the man anything at all. His out-right bumster-behaviour and thieving from my hotel room had resulted in my cutting short my first-ever visit to The Gambia by four days in December 1993. 
“Please send the money through Gambia Experience”, they said and gave me the name and phone number of Stephen Wylde, the owner of The Gambia Experience tour company whom I have since met. I sent £100 through my visa credit card – and Stephen Wylde kindly added another £50, all of which the man’s family collected from The Gambia Experience office in The Gambia to buy their rice. 
Soon the ex-minister got out of jail and phoned me in London, asking for more money even before saying thank you for the last installment. “We will be back in power soon”, he said to me as an incentive to make me send more money. “The ex-President, the British Government and the US government are working on it” he added. As soon as the ex-minister mentioned the imperialists, I sat up and became cautious. 
  “Why would the British and the Americans interfere?” I asked. 
“Because Libya’s Gaddafi encouraged the coup”, replied the ex-minister, “and our President is a Knight of United Kingdom. We have a very good relationship with the British government and the Queen”. 
I decided to be blunt with the ex-minister: 
“Gaddafi is a revolutionary hero for me”, I answered. 
After a pause, the ex-minister changed tack. 
“The leader of the coup is a Jola from Cassamance and he has no support in The Gambia”, answered the ex-minister. 
“What is a Jola?” I asked feigning innocence. 
“Jola is the uneducated tribe in Gambia and Senegal who do menial work – like housework, watchmen, labouring and soldiering”, said the ex-minister. “They have no educated professionals and they cannot run a government”. 
I immediately liked Jammeh’s coup as soon as the ex-minister made this tribalist statement. You see, my own father was a watchman with no bed except his boss’s car, which he had to sleep in to prevent thieves from stealing it. I repeat, my own father. Hamlet’s line “It is the unweeded guarden that grows to seed” has always been a favourite of mine even at school. Even in East Africa, we learnt as children of the poor and disabled MariJatta, who became a great leader for his people in West Africa. So telling me that Jammeh was poor and had no bed as argument against The Man was totally counter-productive. And my majority Ethiopian tribe, the Oromo (60% of Ethiopians) were similarly discriminated against – hence why we welcomed the revolution against Haile Selassie. But a bit more on how I met the ex-minister. 
The ex-minister and I met in London when, as chairman of London Supplementary Schools Association (LSSA), I called a summit of African/Caribbean representatives in Notting Hill. A delegate, a certain Mr. Cocker, formerly of the Prince of Wales school in Freetown, informed me that he had left a Gambian minister in a tiny hotel and would he mind if he asked the minister to join us. I said by all means. Mr. Cocker was not driving, so I offered to pick the minister up in my car. When the minister arrived, he had no cigarettes so I bought him a packet. I also kept buying him Guinness beer throughout the night – out of courtesy since I was the host (many Gambians who have been to Ethiopia testify to our legendary hospitality to fellow Africans - although we happily slaughtered 20,000 soldiers of the Italian Army in 1896). The LSSA  occasion was one in which we, as educated black professionals (there was a Caribbean lawyer too) displayed best what is best amongst our people. We
 were united in working for our community’s educational advancement, and like that other meeting of Pan-Africanists in Manchester in 1945, we were full of energy, ideas and dreams. We were implementing radical pro-black child education policies and actions all over London (and Britain) – in the face of stiff opposition from the white education establishment (later they employed me to do the same in the establishment schools on a salary of £40,000 a year and made me a Winston Churchil Fellow - the deviousness of the English is as legendary as Ethiopian hospitality!). At the LSSA meeting, we were Africans and blacks who certainly didn’t know their place! (The Jola Jammeh was to declare Gambia a “Super-power in the service of humanity” twelve years later – earning my admiration but incurring the ignorant ire of servile Gambians hassling in the West, including the ex-minister). 
After our meeting, I sat next to the minister for a chat. When I told him that I was coming on holiday to The Gambia, he told me to come and have a look at his village where a village school needed roofing. On my visit I saw his village and promised to buy him corrugate for the school. The corrugate ended up being shared by his mother and the village alkalo – according to the village youth group who sent a delegation to see me in my hotel when I return to Revolutionary Gambia in 1995. 
And that is the crux of my story about “Liars, damn lies and The Man”. 
The Man is the heroic current President Jammeh of The Gambia. The hard-working Jammeh has been returned to power by the people of The Gambia in three elections now. The “Lies, damn lies” are being perpetuated by the likes of the ex-minister and his ilk now calling themselves “political exiles” in the West. It is more accurate to describe them as “Beef-Burger Exiles” because the “political” bit is only used to fool the governments of the West to obtain asylum, residency and passports. (Please don’t misunderstand me – I have nothing but admiration for the honest Economic Migrants since they do end up sending much money home to help our people). 
This is the tragedy of Africa. The ex-minister’s stealing of the primary school’s corrugate, which can be verified by his whole village, is only a drop in the ocean. During 30-years in power, the ex-minister’s party never built a single high school or a hospital. The country had no television, no roads, no university, and no airport to speak of. When on my first visit the ex-minister picked me up from Yundum Airport, our luggage was unceremoniously dumped in the dirt where passengers had to try and identify their by-now-sandy-brown luggage. I suggested to the ex-minister that the scramble for the luggage could be avoided by names on the labels being called out, so that passengers could come up for their luggage in an orderly manner – and bench seats could be offered to the passengers while they wait. The Minister looked at me as if I was suggesting that Gambia should send a rocket to the moon! As soon as he took over, The Man Jammeh built a modern airport for The Gambia. 
As far as I am concerned, the negligence of Gambia’s development before 1994 amounted to criminal negligence (see my long poem entitled “July 22 – Rap a Revolution”). Now, people who committed this negligence through unfettered selfishness and corruption (the stories about this particular ex-minister’s corruption, by no means a big-fish, are seemingly endless - as are stories of his behaviour in UK which I will not repeat here). 
The gallant President Jammeh is to be inaugurated soon and, going by his track recorded over the last twelve years, there is no doubt that another period of accelerated development lies in store for The Gambia (which is now the motherland of my beautiful son Hassan and gorgeous daughter Jainaba - I could say to the ex-minister that my children are more Gambian than him, but, being a pan-Africanist, I won’t indulge in his petty tribalism). President Jammeh, like all Third World leaders who have dedicated their lives to the uplifting of their people face mortal enemies – in part encouraged by greedy selfish traitors like the ex-minister. There was a programme on British TV in November 2006 entitled “638 Ways to Kill Castro”. Yes 638 attempts have been made by foreign interests to eliminate Castro since 1959. Similarly, Chavez and Gadaffi (Gadaffi’s young daughter got the full-force of the fighter-jet’s bomb, the fighter-jet sent to Libya from United Kingdom soil by the United
 States - of course, both UK and US are admirably against "terrorism"). 
It is in the interest of all Gambians, especially the majority who are poor, that Jammeh’s revolution to develop The Gambia continues. Amazingly, inspite of obstacles put in his way by hostile foreign powers, The Man has been able to obtain funds to develop The Gambia. I have no doubt that Jammeh will continue to develop The Gambia during the next five years of his Presidency – and he runs the risk (a wonderful one for me but a nightmare for the ex-minister and his ilk!) of leaving The Gambia a legacy of heroic leadership as with Castro in Cuba, Gadaffi in Libya, Chavez in Venezuela, Biko in Azania, Sankara in Burkina Faso, Murtalla Muhammed in Nigeria, Cabral in Bissau, etc, etc. 
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