When Lang Conteh entered a plea-bargain, in essence admitting guilt to charges including theft of over 200 million Dalasis from the Central Bank of The Gambia, I opined the following: ''From my very little grasp of law, I can dare concude that whereas what Lang Conteh stands to profit from the plea bargain is by no means clear or even certain to him as the defendant, the following is at least guaranteed by the plea bargain: The APRC regime has at least temporarilly been reprieved of very serious criminal disclosures on how a small clique of criminals under the direct gaze of Yahya Jammeh robbed Gambians of unknown millions of Dalasis. Had Lang Conteh mounted a very robust and vigorous defence of his role in the APRC's regime theft of millions of Dalasis from State coffers as he originally intended, the trail would have surely led directly to Yahya Jammeh's mouth. In order to avert such a compounding disaster on the grossly dishonest APRC leadership, Lang Conteh must have been persuaded to enter into a plea bargain in exchange for a lenient sentence from the State.'' So it turned out that Lang Conteh got away with a very very lenient sentence, indeed! Considering the amount of money he's been accused of having squandered from the State's coffers which is said to be in excess of 200 million Dalasis, a one-year custodial sentence is by all measures A GREAT GET-AWAY for him. However, if Mr Conteh has been heard rightly in his reaction, he is quoted of having stated that ''this is not what we agreed''. Does his reaction mean that he was expecting a lesser sentence than he got? I guess so but that's beside the point. I would proceed to get this unprecedented corruption scandal into some perspective. Sometime last year a group of 4 unemployed boys in my neighbourhood of Serekunda were convicted of having broken into a shop and stolen over a thousand Dalasis of merchandise. They were subsequently each sentenced to a jail term of 2 years in prison. They are still rightly serving their prison terms. Whereas there could be no excuse for what they did which was criminal and therefore duly deserved their two-year custodial sentences, their crimes were directed against only a unit of interest i.e the shop owner and his dependants and probably the feeling of insecurity caused within the neighbourhood of the crime scene as well. In the case of Lang Conteh, however, the crimes he committed was directed against the benefit or interests of every Gambian man, woman and child and even future generations of Gambians yet to be borned. If there were any justice in our society, Lang Conteh would have had Mile II Central Prisons as his permanent address for the rest of his life but we know ought to know better, that under the government of Yahya Jammeh student demonstrators exercising their God-given human rights were sentenced to death by summary execution while those of his associates who are directly responsible for wreaking the havoc of poverty on the masses are sent on just a year's leave of absence from society. Let us just contemplate how many Gambians could 200 million Dalasis lift out poverty if such an amount were to be invested towards that end? A great many indeed! Probably in about 10 months, Lang Conteh would be out of jail to enjoy the remainder of his loot, safely stashed somewhere. As for the group of boys serving their two-year jail terms, well, they have at least until November 2006 to come back to mainstream society. Is that justice? Without any hesitation, Lang Conteh could be proclaimed a villain. I was told by someone who knew him that he, Lang, is a very nice and sociable person. I personally don't think so. To me, his likes however charitable or generous they feign to be are nothing other than plain wicked and parasites to society at large. From another angle of perspective, Mr Conteh, though a villain and a criminal, is just another fall guy or a guilty scapegoat to cover for none other than the dishonesty of our head odf State. However hard the APRC government and their disinformation network try to potray Lang Conteh by distorting the truth, there could be no doubt that Lang Conteh is not the head of the thieves in the Gambia. NO HE SIMPLY IS NOT. We should all know that to be Yahya Jammeh. My justification for so saying is because Yahya Jammeh has stolen from our coffers more than any of his accomplices and certainly more than any other Gambian. His only respite for now is that he is in charge and could therefore send any member of his gang of thieves to prison as he wishes. In which respect, it could therefore be argued that Lang Conteh is also a victim of Yahya Jammeh's unscrupulous government. All said and considered, the real victims from all this web of corruption spun and spearheaded by the President of The Gambia continues to be the poor masses who pay more for his corrupt and dishonest demeanours. Gambians save The Gambia and God save us all. Bailo. _________________________________________________________________ Don’t just search. Find. 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