The Gambia’s Interior Minister has brushed aside any notion that the government is divided because “there is no them and us.”
“This is your government; we did it rightly or wrongly you tell us and we get it corrected,” Mai Ahmad Fatty told deputies in Parliament.
“There is no THEM and US; the legislative is one of the three arms of the government. We have one government; the legislative is not a government by itself. This government is under one presidency. The judiciary is not a government by itself; all these three constitute one government. So we should have a common vision, common purpose and a common interest in resolving our common problems. And that should be the approach, as the Honorable Member (referring to Halifa Sallah) will say one Gambia, one nation, one destiny. That is the approach, and that is how we see it,” Minister Fatty added.
Fatty said despite being the Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security, the Member for Serekunda, Halifa Sallah chose to make statements on the Kanilai incident outside the committee. “But certainly, Honorable Member of Serekunda is the Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security, and certainly he made statements outside that committee. We learned it in the media. And Honorable Member’s comment that he made in the media is also part of the lessons we learned from. They are all perspectives and we are open.”
Ends
Bax , it is indeed false to claim that Minister Fatty commended Mr Sallah in the National Assembly. Mr fatty comment is a general statement that indicated everyone learn from kanillia rebel incited violent protest. Mr fatty stated that Mr Sallah ” made statements outside the committee ” even though Mr Sallah was the Vice President of parliamentary committee on Defense and Security. I think it is a deadly mistake to have Mr Sallah as Vice President of parliamentary committee on Defense and Security. This is because he lack security consciousness and he is very naive about Gambia’s current security concerns and threats . His comments on kanillia incident was irresponsible and dangerous. It was sabotage on national security and parliamentary committee on defense and security. Mr Sallah should have called for parliamentary hearing on kanillia incident so that he can gather evidential facts about the event but he embarked on flawed political strategy to gain support from defeated jammeh’s supporters. Every honest security conscious human being will indicate that Gambia’s is in dangerous fragile security conditions. This is evidence by recent report of external threat from jammeh’s loyal forces and Jola tribal dominated rebellion in cassamance. These are Existential threat which must be eliminated. I believe that without total liquidation and elimination of Jammeh’s political influence, properties and himself from the face of the earth, The Gambia’s peace and stability will continue to be threatened and our new found democracy and constitutional rule is at highest risk of disintegration. Jammeh is a viable threat who must be defeated , destroyed and finally buried in the high sea where his supporters would never get access to his grave .
Quote @ Fatunetwork: “The Interior Minister in his respond to the questions raised by the member for Banjul South about the Kanilai and Farato incidents said they have regretted it and learnt lessons on those incidents particularly from the honourable member for Serrekunda, Halifa Sallah who is also the Vice Chairman of the Defense and Security Council.”
(1). Max, How can you call this a “general statement” (full stop), when Hon.Minister Fatty made specific reference to Hon.Halifa Sallah for lessons learnt from him, in particular? You will have no choice but to eventually admit the obvious.
(2). Hon Halifa Sallah is the Vice President of the Defense and Security Committee in the Assembly and he is definitely, a valuable member. All citizens, who love the country, will support members of committees in their work in the Assembly and leave party politics aside, as far as membership of committees are concerned. You should show that you are a good citizen.
(3). Do you know what is dangerous and irresponsible? It is to make inflamatory statements or claims that are based on prejudices, rather than facts. You continue to make inflammatory claims about the Kanilai incident, without an iota of proof. That’s what is irresponsible and dangerous.
(4). Like you, Colonel Ndiaye of the Senegalese Army, is also quoted as claiming that the demonstrators were armed with hunting rifles, machetes, knives and stones, but such claims have been dismissed by independent eye witnesses and are yet to be substantiated by those who make them.
As such, information coming from that quarter, relating to security threats, cannot be dismissed and disregarded, but must not be taken at face value. Moreover, the manner that this information was revealed to the public leaves a lot of questions to be answered.
Was the Gambian authorities informed? Was the information shared with ECOWAS and the ECOMIG Forces? Did ECOWAS release any statement relating to this security threat?
From the reaction of our own authorities, it seems that they have neither been informed about this threat, nor was any information shared with them, before the foreign ministers of Senegal and France divulged this information to the public. Is this the normal procedure to deal with information of security threats between partners?
We shouldn’t be daft. We must be wary of being manipulated in pursuit of geopolitical interests and both Gambia and ECOMIG should be alive to any attempts of destabilising the country to create a certain condition in our country.
Bax , you have not only dismissed my factual statements on kanillia Rebels incited violent protesters armed with deadly local made weapons but you went further to vilify and dismiss the factual statements made by outstanding , competent and credible source in the person of Col Ndiaye of Senegal Army who was one time the head of Ecomig forces in The Gambia. External security threat is real and credible which is known to international intelligence community and governments. Col Ndiaye knowledge of external security threat was even confirmed by Gambian Army . Kanillia violent protest was incited by these external security threats and protesters were armed with deadly weapons. The Ecomig forces have no choice but to defend themselves against rebels protesters among the citizens protesters. It is indeed very naive and dishonest to dismiss Col Ndiaye factual statements but at the same time believe in futile and flawed political irresponsible statements from Halifa Sallah who has zero security experience and knowledge.
Coming back to your claim that Hon fatty commended Mr Sallah based on the report from Fatu radio, first Fatu radio is pro-PDOIS and therefore they will continue to make propaganda to promote Halifa Sallah despite their failure to learn that Halifa Sallah is dejected , repudiated and insignificant as far as real indigenous voters are concerned. Fatu radio analysts and political strategists have no idea how Gambian politics works and you will also notice that majority of people associated with the network were former enablers who fell out with the dictator, thus they have no choice but to be part and parcel of the struggle to liberate the country. These people are totally different from the hardcore UDP supporters and leadership who truly dejected and repudiated military dictatorship since day one. People in Fatu network are sympathetic and supportive of Halifa Sallah just like APRC supporters are now supportive of him . That said , kaironews quoted Mr fatty when he stated that ” certainly Hon member of serekunda is the Vice chair of parliamentary committee on Defense and security and he certainly made statements outside the committee. We learned it from the media “. He further to state that “Mr Sallah’s statement are all perspectives , we learned from the media and they are open” . Mr fatty’s statements has never praised or expressed regret about the ill-conceived and irresponsible political rhetoric from Mr Sallah regarding the kanillia protest. It was a statements based on open minded and responsible character of a minister who is always willing to engage and defend what is constitutional right. Off course, as a leader Mr fatty will continue to learn from any incident and political rhetoric , especially the one which comes Vice President of parliamentary committee on defense and security. Mr fatty’s statements was direct criticism of Mr Sallah’s statements when he stated that Mr Sallah ” made the statements outside the parliamentary committee ” . This is because as a member of committee, any responsible leader would have called for hearing to gather evidence but Mr Sallah claims and political rhetorics are irrelevant , dishonest and irresponsible designed to promote his selfish political interests. Therefore I totally dismiss and disagree with your false claims that Mr fatty’s statements was designed to genuinely endorse Mr Sallah.
The last part of your above posting is deeply troubling and dangerous in the sense that you seem to suggest that Ecomig and Senegal are in the country to promote their geopolitical interests. This is evidence by your statement and I quote :
Bax said ” we must be wary of being manipulated in pursuit of geopolitical interests, and both Gambia and Ecomig should be alive of any attempt to destabilizing the country to create a certain conditions in our country “.
Your suggestion above that Senegal and Ecomig forces are in the country to create a certain destabilizing condition is a crazy and evil talk designed to dismiss 22 years of suffering and various human rights violations caused by Jammeh and his thugs. This is the kind of language we continue to receive from people who want the status quo to continue to humiliate and abuse citizens. I hope you will be courageous and honest enough to apologize for this crazy talk and suggestion.
Mai Fatty keep it up i support you wholeheartedly. Without your good job and actions this country may get in to destabilization. Please Mai don’t listen to the hypocrites continue the good work Allah will be on your side Insha-Allah. Without you in this new regime am scared. May Allah guide and bless you and the entire Gambia
@Fatunetwork: “The Minister of Interior, honorable Mai Ahmed Fatty has dismissed reports of former President Jammeh loyalists allegedly planning to invade The Gambia.
“There is no invasion force coming into this country. Anybody who think our security is fragile and want to try it you will wish you never tried it,” Minister Mai Ahmed Fatty said.”
Now then Max, you have to make up your mind and tell me who you believe: Senegalese and French Foreign Ministers or your own Interior Minister.
Decide between these officials who is being irresponsible; for if there is a threat of invasion, then Interior minister Fatty is being irresponsible and if there’s none, then the foreign ministers are.
Let’s hear how you address this contradiction between supposed partners.
Bax , there is no contradiction in Mr fatty’s statements which clearly was done to assure the citizenry that there is no invasion forces coming to the country at the moment even though there are credible threats to our security. There is a difference between planning to invade, invasion and a credible threat. You failed to understand that there are different stages before any invasion . First there must be a credible threat, then planning and finally invasion . This can be further stated as pre-contemplating, contemplating , planning, intervention/invasion( action ) and outcome/ consequences. Mr fatty was talking about the alleged planning and invasion which at the moment is not happening due to security measures put in place . In fact Mr fatty in this case was right because there was no evidence of planned invasion by Jammeh’s loyalists despite credible external threats. The invasion is actionable process which means Jammeh’s loyalists and Jola tribal dominated rebels will attack our beautiful country. Therefore I would caution you to read his statements carefully before you jump to conclusions like you did in this case. Planning and invasion are two steps process which he allegedly dismissed but Mr fatty never dismissed the credible threats which is substantiated and confirmed by intelligence community including Senegal. This is the fact you need to understand. I therefore dismiss your false claim that there was contradiction between Mr fatty and Senegalese/French foreign minister. If You read in between the lines intelligently, you will discover that they were talking about two different concepts. I commend Mr fatty for doing good job to assure the country there is no planned invasion forces coming to our country despite the credible threats.
According to your explanation Max, The Senegalese/French foreign ministers are not telling us what we don,t already know. Therefore we should just forget about it and move on as a country. Both Senegal and France also has there own security threats.
What we must be careful about is scaremongering which is not good for our economy as it could drive away possible investors.
“one Gambia”, “one nation”, but may be not one destiny! – but a stratified one at that, with one’s destiny defined largely by what strata one belongs to! For example, who gets what medical treatment, and where from (eg gets to go to Dakar, or India) depends surely on whether one is the Minister of Works for example, or a lumpen proletariat from, say, Sareh Gubu, and then there is everything else in between.
I cannot help but observe that the Minister in this case is using the Judo technique when he quotes Halifa Sallah. With Judo technique one uses your opponent’s strengths to throw them off balance. So by quoting Halifa, we are meant to overlook the fact that one Gambia, One nation does not necessarily translate into one destiny, given man’s general predilection to greed, to cheat, and squander what belongs to others.
We all know the famous Hyena fable which goes something like this “what is mine is mine” what is yours is to share”.
Real hypocrites are those who refuse to accept the truth for no other reason other than mere selfishness and hatred for others [like the leader of hypocrites in Medina Abdullah ibn Ubay Salul ]and their abode according to our prophet is in the lowest level of hell-fire.
Max, let’s test your honesty again. I have no doubt in your skills to turn fiction into “facts” and attempt to twist facts to suit your narrative, like a slippery snake with a forked tongue.
@Max…”Col Ndiaye knowledge of external security threat was even confirmed by Gambian Army .”
Since Fatunetwork is “Pro-PDOIS”, let’s try a different source: The Point Newspaper.
@The Point: “In an interview with this paper, Lt Colonel Omar Bojang, public relations officer of GAF, said:
“We heard information of the deserters threat to The Gambia. We have contacted relevant stakeholders, especially in the neigbouring countries, to share with us any information of threat to The Gambia they gathered.”
Let me ask you again:
1. Was The Gambian authorities aware of the threat before it was made public or not?
1. Was this threat confirmed by our authorities or not?
Bax , I think your questions above did not make any sense because the answer to your question are indicated in Col Omar Bonjang’s statement below :
“We heard information of the deserters threat to The Gambia. We have contacted relevant stakeholders especially in the neighboring countries, to share with us any information of threat to The Gambia they gathered “.
Your first question was whether the authorities were aware of threat before it was made public or not . That is a irrelevant question because authorities must be aware of the threat before they could talk it about publicly .
Your second question was whether the authorities confirmed the threat or not . Off course the Authority are aware of the threat , therefore they have confirmed the threat and it was credible and real. This was evidenced when Col Bojang indicated that they heard information about the threat . Logically speaking , once again if you have read the Col Bojang’s statements intelligently, you won’t have asked above questions. I am different from you because of my analytical skills and ability to understand statements in proper context. In communication, there is ” reflective listening ” which enables you to have proper understanding when you take your time to listen and analyze what is being said or written. I would encourage you to start doing that and stop jumping to conclusions but I would also commend you to continue to ask question even though you sometimes asked irrelevant questions. There is nothing wrong in asking irrelevant questions.
Max….
I think you are talking absolute rubbish. I would not even have come back on this issue, except to point out a few things:
1. Col. Bojang’s response to questions about a security threat to The Gambia is neither an acknowledgement of prior knowledge, nor a confirmation of the threat. So you are wrong to claim that by merely answering questions about the issue, he is saying that they were aware of the threat before the information was made public.
2. Col Bojang used the term, “we heard” to indicate how they (The Gambian authorities ) got this information and this would suggest unofficial sources, probably the same one as the rest of the public.
The Colonel has performed this role of spokesman of GAF for a long time and he would have known the implications of his choice of words in official communication. I am sure that the Colonel would be aware that if his intention was to indicate prior knowledge, then the proper terms would have been, “we received”, “we were informed”, “we were made aware”, etc.
3. The next part of Col Bojang’s statement makes it abundantly clear that the information was not in their possession when it was made public (when they heard it) and that’s why he said they have contacted relevant authorities to share ANY information they may have gathered on this security threat to The Gambia.
What is obvious here is that at the time that they heard this information, they had nothing relating to this particular threat in their possession, so the natural thing was to embark on data collection, which is what they did by contacting relevant authorities for information sharing.
4. If the government is working as a unit, and I have no doubt that it is, then I would observe that the authorities have done their invesgation and are satisfied that this threat of Jammeh loyalists planning an invasion is not credible.
Why?
A) the information was released to the public in June by French and Senegalese Foreign Ministers;
B) Almost a month later, the Hon Minister of Interior dismissed the threat of an invasion in the National Assembly, when asked by deputies.
You tried to put a twist to it in one of your comments by talking about planning, precontemplating, comptemplating, actionable, invasion and this and that bull shit.
The simple fact is that information about a threat of invasion by Jammeh loyalists was revealed to the public, and a month or so later, most probably after contacting relevant authorities in the neighbouring countries, The Gambian authorities dismissed it as not credible in the National Assembly when deputies asked the Interior Minister.
So all that precontemplating, actionable, planning, blah, blah bullshit is completely pointless, as it has no relevance to what is been discussed, and just goes to show how dishonest and disingenuous you are.
Also Max, Hon Fatty has a right to criticise anybody, but whether his statement was meant as a criticism or not, is down to individual interpretation. You may see it as criticism, whilst another may see it differently. What is clear, like noon day light, is that Hon Fatty commended Hon Sallah, even if indirectly, in two ways:
1. Acknowledging that lessons have been learnt from him;
2. Making a rallying call by alluding to Hon Sallah’s “One Gambia, One People, One Nation” mantra.
Hon Sallah, being a NAM and a legitimate party official, can choose to approach issues from both sides, and if he chose to speak outside the NA Committee, he is entitled to do that. Nobody should grumble about that. The two bodies (National Assembly & PDOIS) are both national institutions.
I don’t know who convenes committee meetings at the National Assembly, but I don’t think he has broken any laws by speaking outside the committee.
Lastly, you always try to link Hon Sallah’s actions to an attempt to wooing APRC voters to PDOIS. Though this is definitely false, I often wonder why you are so concerned about denying PDOIS any enjoyment of support from the APRC camp.
PDOIS has not openly called on any APRC voters to join them, and they have certainly not paraded any former APRC officials on their political platforms, as far as I know, and yet, it is the only party you single out for this criticism, despite others openly courting APRC voters. I wonder why?
And just for the sake of argument, why shouldn’t PDOIS canvass for support from the APRC voters?
If the UDP, your party of choice, can accept that distardly bunch of APRC NAMs into their ranks, soon after they fell from grace, and openly call for their members to join their party, why shouldn’t PDOIS wish to woo them into their party, in their own way? What’s the problem here? Are you scared?