Last night I came across a very funny piece in Gambian newspapers. There was a report stating that a school teacher was attacked by her students because apparently the lady was given ten Dalasis by Yaya and the lady decided to keep the five thousand to herself (as a personal gift from Yaya) and give the school the other five thousand. Very plain and simple story on the surface. Rudiments of right from wrong we should learn from our parents at a very early age. The teacher and the students both thought that they were entitled to the five thousand the teacher was claiming to herself. But what was significant to me about this story was that I detected the same kinds of traits that characterize the way Gambia is run at the helm. As we go up, the characters in the story simply change. The teacher becomes Yaya and the students become the general Gambian population. This is the same game Yaya plays on the Gambian people. He sends his people to Taiwan to negotiate loans. The cash dollars are loaded in suitcases and brought straight to the State House (forget the Central Bank and the transparent way things were done in the past). When Yaya sees the money, he takes a decent chuck of the money and regard it as a 'personal gift' to him from the Taiwanese. These are the dollars Yaya and his cronies use in order to open accounts such as account number 49275.1 with Credit Lyonnais in Switzerland and a $20 million dollar account at Citibank also in Switzerland. There is no such thing as Allah's Bank as Yaya and his cronies would like us to believe. What is going on here is corruption to the core. Like the teacher, Yaya will receive money on behalf of Gambians and treat the money as a 'personal gift' to Yaya. It is that money he uses to engage in 'gift' giving to win people's support. He also uses the money to finance a flamboyant lifestyle; driving 'fancy' cars, buying an airplane, building a bunker in Kanilai, fencing villages he can call his own and importing exotic animals into the country. Like the students that attacked their teacher, Gambians should also attack Yaya. The same sense of justice that spurred the students to repudiate the teacher's claim that the money was donated to her personally, should energize Gambians to claim what is rightfully theirs from Yaya. This money Yaya is dishing around belongs to the Gambian poor. Yaya is NOT doing people a favor by dishing ten thousand dalasis to any entourage that visits him in Kanilai. He is simply returning to people what originally belonged to them. Surely the students will not hail the teacher as a benevolent leader if she sees light and return the five thousand to the students. The students know that the teacher would not have received the five thousand dalasis on her own merit. If the teacher was not with the students, she would not even go to Kanilai let alone be given five thousand dalasis. So Gambians should NOT see Yaya as a philanthropist if the vermin steals from the people and then return part of the money. What is clear is that Yaya's salary cannot finance the lifestyle he is leading. Like the crook he is, he engages in criminal behavior to finance his flamboyant lifestyle. Even if we assume that these moneys Yaya claims are actually given to him, people should ask themselves why the Taiwanese will want to give Gambia a $35 million loan and give Yaya $10 million on the side as a personal gift. Does that make sense? Would the Taiwanese give $10 million to any low-life lieutenant from Gambia? I submit that even if the money was 'given' to Yaya on the side, that is bribery; a crime in our books. Yaya had access to those bribes by virtue of his position in the country. When he was a lieutenant, no one would even 'give' him $100. Should we allow the vermin to go around boasting to be the richest Gambian when we all know that he did not earn 'his' money? Should we allow our people to feel indebted to Yaya because the low-life is stealing from them just to turn around and 'give' them back part of the money? In this election season when all sorts of opportunists are parading before Yaya to ask for 'donations' and declare their 'allegiance' to Yaya, we should make the source of Yaya's 'wealth' an issue. In six years, the thief has stolen from us more than people can imagine. We have documented proof that by January 16, 1996 (less than two years after the criminals stole power) Yaya by himself opened Swiss Bank accounts with moneys totaling over $20 million. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Yaya did not just steal money from us, but he uses our Attorney General's Chambers and Gambian taxpayers' money to ensure that the money stays with him. Anyone that doubts this figures can ask the then Attorney General in early 1996. We should be as mad as the students that would not allow their teacher to take the five thousand dalasis for herself. Yaya is taking millions of dollars for himself; millions that rightfully belong to the Gambian poor. KB _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------