My Fellow Gambians!
In today’s message, I shall attempt to paint the bleak picture of The Gambia
in the coming years should you, the electorate, fail to vote Yahya Jammeh
out of office.
Therefore, it is vital that the right choice is made on October 18th,
otherwise we shall be haunted for a long, long time to come.
For the past seven years of Jammeh’s misrule, we have all seen at first hand
what this terrible man is capable of. He has virtually destroyed all
aspects of Gambian life: he has led a regime which is synonymous with
repression, incompetence, brutality, nepotism, abuse of office, abuse of
power and gross corruption.
Just the other day, I undertook some independent research into how much
money Jammeh has taken in national loans since 1994. To my horror and
amazement, my findings indicated that in excess of 420 million US Dollars
has been taken out in foreign loans. The government will obviously try to
deflate this massive figure since it would seriously embarrass them were
the truth to be told.
However, using my sources and contacts in the International Monetary Fund,
the World Bank and other international financial institutions, it was
concluded that this figure of 420 million US Dollars is accurate.
It is therefore no understatement to say that whoever replaces Jammeh will
have a difficult task ahead: these criminals have drained our resources and
burdened us with this massive debt.
Even three generations from now, the debts will still not have been repaid.
The interest we are having to pay on these loans is a crippling amount for a
small country like The Gambia.
Consequently, we have a duty to ourselves, to our consciences, but more so
to our children and posterity in general, to try and make things better for
them, so that tomorrow they might judge us in a more kindly way.
Our country is at a crossroads and we have to do everything within our means
to make The Gambia a better place for all of us to live in.
The problems we face are immense: the causes of the problems are
multifaceted. But let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the prime
cause of all our current troubles is Yahya Jammeh himself and all that he
represents.
Therefore the first and major step towards beginning to solve our problems,
is to unseat Jammeh from the presidency on Thursday.
Over these seven years, we have witnessed how Jammeh has misruled our
country, how he has paralysed the economy, how he has crippled businesses,
how he has destroyed the civil service, how he has swindled public funds,
how he has illegally detained innocent people, how he has sacked people
unjustifiably, how he has quite openly dished out public funds to his
cronies, how he has boasted about his personal wealth to the extent that he
said that even his great-grandchildren would never have to suffer.
As a result of all this injustice and corruption, most of us, apart from his
clique of gangster colleagues, have been lamenting the situation in The
Gambia. We have feared for our country, we have cried for our country, we
have been disheartened because of the manner in which it is being run. We
have been talking about how The Gambia is being mismanaged and
maladministered by Jammeh. We have lamented how incompetence is now the
norm in central government.
We have complained about how our meagre resources are being squandered or
stashed away by Jammeh and his gang for their own personal use and
aggrandisement. We have been saddened by the knowledge that our citizens
have had all their hopes lost because of this barbaric regime.
We have talked about how Jammeh has destroyed the human resources of our
country. If you go to South America, to the USA, to Canada, to Asia, to
Scandinavia, to Northern Europe, to the UK, you will find there talented
Gambians – men and women – who have so much to offer their own country and
their own people, but yet the political situation at home prevents or deters
them from returning: their talents are ignored by the ignoramus Jammeh, as
are the talents of people in The Gambia who are being forced into exile
because of daily repression, daily injustice, daily corruption at the heart
of government.
Today, thousands of talented Gambians have found themselves contributing
substantially to the political and economic lives of other countries, when
if things were right, their contributions would have been directly to and in
The Gambia. Charity, they say, begins at home, but the reality is that the
climate at home does not only prevent the recall of talent, it also expels
and exiles talents.
We no longer need reminding of what Jammeh represents for us and our
country: the facts are in the open and for all to see. Any Gambian in his
or her right senses needs no convincing that Jammeh is a liar, a thief, is
corrupt to the core, has killed innocent school children, is despotic, is
incompetent and is a laughing stock throughout the world.
Having seen the hardship, the impoverishment of our people, the injustices
perpetrated on our people by Jammeh, we have all been looking forward to the
elections to give us an opportunity to right the wrongs in our nation and to
uproot Jammeh once and for all. We have all been looking forward to
election day, when we shall close the Jammeh chapter and open a new one.
During the past five years, after the 1996 elections, we have been longing
for the next presidential elections in order to unseat the tyrant. Because
of our conscience, but more so because of our love for justice and the
truth, we have all been looking forward to the 2001 elections so that we can
teach Jammeh a lesson he will never forget in his life.
If you take the year 1997, the repression in evidence then (and continuing
to the present day) was too much. The levels of poverty intensified, the
arbitrary dismissal of people from their jobs increased, business went into
the doldrums throughout the nation. We started then and there to look
forward to the elections, but realised how far they were from 1997.
Well – in my part of the world, they say that "time flies", and indeed, time
has flown. At long last, the elections are days and not years, months or
weeks away.
It has been difficult, all these years; it has been tough for Gambians
everywhere. Words cannot begin to describe how awful these last five years
have been for all except a few of us. Every sphere of Gambian life has seen
the hardship – teachers, nurses, doctors, taxi drivers, shop keepers, market
vendors, journalists, members of the judiciary, farmers and housewives. All
of us have suffered.
Well, anything that has a beginning must also come to an end: the
opportunity has now come for us to get rid of Jammeh. He has abused us,
disrespected us, cheated us, lied to us. Now it is our time and turn to take
our destiny into our own hands. This is the chance we have to turn to our
best advantage.
Let us now think about the unthinkable: let us imagine what will happen to
The Gambia and its citizens if you, the electorate, fail to vote him out of
office.
If you the electorate do not take this election seriously, if you do not
take your vote seriously, if you do not make the right choice, if you do not
make the right decision, then more hard times will be ahead of us all, and
we shall all soon live to regret it.
If we fail to get rid of Jammeh in the polls, then in the first instance,
Jammeh and his cronies will have been given carte blanche to act without
regard to the people of The Gambia. They will have more and better food to
eat than the rest of the country, they will live in better houses and
palaces, they will travel even more extensively in first class, they will
have treatment for themselves and their families in the best Western
hospitals and clinics.
We, the Gambian majority, will struggle to pay our daily travel expenses at
home, we will fight to afford enough food to eat, we will see our levels of
accommodation deteriorate, we will remain impoverished, destitute and
without access to decent levels of medical care, education and social
welfare.
The impact on our children of Jammeh hanging onto power will be huge. Poor
diet in the early years, restricted access to lower and upper basic levels
of education, poor health care and lack of medicines and vitamins, early
death. This will be our children’s legacy if we allow Jammeh to remain in
office. And be sure that the rich cats, the fat cats (as we say here in the
UK) the Jammeh sycophants in our land will get richer and fatter at our
children’s expense.
If you think we have seen enough of Jammeh’s corruption, tyranny and
brutality, his heavy-handedness, then you are totally mistaken. These past
seven years, as tough and as hard as they have been, are just the tip of the
iceberg.
Those of us who know Jammeh and have observed him closely for some time, are
convinced that Jammeh is capable of more treachery, more dishonesty, more
brutality and more corruption than he has shown to date, or than you would
believe possible.
You see, Jammeh’s psyche is deranged: he truly believes that Gambians
should thank him for ruling us! His megalomania knows no bounds. Instead of
him being our "elected" public servant and with us as his masters, he has
subjugated us to an extent never before witnessed in our country’s history.
He puts himself forward as our undisputed and omnipotent King. For Jammeh,
the Gambia and its people are his personal property to dispose of as and
when he wishes.
Jammeh is deranged, mentally unstable and does not deserve to look after a
herd of cattle or a flock of goats, let alone a nation of decent citizens !
My Fellow Gambians! Jammeh has already hinted at what his intentions are
were he to be re-elected. He wants a clause inserted into the Constitution
which would give him the power to appoint Chiefs and Alkalolus: he wants
another clause in the Constitution which would increase the term of the
presidency from five to seven years. He wants to dissolve the IEC. He wants
to give additional powers of arrest and detention to the NIA and to the
Army.
I know that some of the clauses in the Constitution which he wishes to
change are entrenched: that is, they can only be changed by a national
referendum. But we all know that Jammeh has no regard at all for the rule
of law. He will do as he pleases and when he pleases.
Consider the plight of those innocent Gambians who are still held without
charge and without regard to the due process of the law: people like Dumo
Sarho, Ebrima Barrow, Lt. Lalo Jaiteh, Lt. Omar Darboe, Momodou Mareneh and
many, many more. They will continue to languish in detention, and be sure
that they will be joined by many others if Jammeh hangs onto power.
Jammeh has publicly claimed that he wants absolute powers to appoint senior
public servants directly, rather than through the Public Services
Commission. Jammeh wants all appointments to be centralised in the Office of
the President, and already in practice he has accomplished this, to the
extent that the PSC is a body in name only.
My Fellow Gambians!
The opportunity is here. The election is four days away. Let us close the
Jammeh chapter. Let us put an end to this dark page in our history. Let us
know that Jammeh has failed us miserably. Let us know that he does not have
what it takes to lead our country forwards.
Jammeh is interested in his personal well being: he is interested in the
welfare of his immediate family and his cronies. He does not, and never has
had, The Gambia at heart. This is a man who boasts about our Gambian health
sector, and yet sends his wife abroad to deliver her baby in the USA: this
is a man who banned skin bleaching in The Gambia and castigated young
Gambians for marrying Westerners, and yet he himself has married a
light-skinned Moroccan having dumped his first Gambian wife.
Jammeh now travels extensively in "his" private jet, paid for by the public
purse. During one of his recent trips, he went with more than fifty two
people all of whom were paid Imprest and Per Diem allowances by the tax
payer ! They are all accommodated in the best and most luxurious hotels.
Jammeh boasts about paying for his relatives in Universities in America and
in England, and he is buying more and more international properties for
himself (at the last count, 1 in Egypt, 2 in Morocco, 1 in Libya and 1 in
the United Arab Emirates).
He has personal bank accounts internationally, and recently it was disclosed
that he has opened a further account in Abu Dhabi in the UAE, which is
believed to hold 17 million US Dollars ! All this is for one man !!
Really, the truth is that Jammeh is a thief, a liar, a scoundrel, a
murderer, a buffoon and a laughing stock. He is an enemy of our country,
which he has brought to its knees in his seven years in power.
Only you, the Gambian electorate, have the power to see the back of this
man, peacefully and through the polling stations.
I urge you not to let Yahya Jammeh stay in power for one second more after
October 18th. It is your duty to save our nation from this evil man and his
gang.
Go in your thousands and VOTE HIM OUT OF OFFICE.
God help The Gambia. God save us all.
Ebrima Ceesay,
Birmingham, UK
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