President Yahya Jammeh is responsible for the illegal arrest and continued detention of Imam Cherno Gassama of Brikamaba Darsilameh in Central River Region, Kairo News investigation confirms.
The venerable Imam’s arrest is connected to his opposition to President Jammeh’s land grabbing spree in the area. As a firm believer in the power and blessings of farming, Imam Gassama refuses to surrender his village’s fertile lands to a never satisfied leader. Mr. Jammeh has rice fields and farmlands across the country, including Brikamaba Darsilameh. The greedy leader won’t be satisfied until he has every fertile Gambian land in his possession.
Kairo News gathers that Imam Gassama had openly challenged the forceful seizure of poor people’s land, which is their sole source of survival. “As a community and religious leader with large following, Imam Gassama condemns grabbing of private lands by the President’s front-men land scouts.”
“These scouts comb rural areas in search of fertile land,” one Brikamaba resident reveals. “They will grab the best lands for the President without offering any compensation, and nobody daring to challenge them except Imam Gassama.”
Imam Cherno Gassama’s defiance invites full blown anger from an ego-filled leader who is always determined to punish anyone who stands on his interest. Mr. Jammeh’s agents and interest groups have been tasked to put the defiant Imam under their radar until October 30th when he delivered a sermon on leadership responsibility. In that he advised power holders to be mindful of reckless power abuse, which invites Allah’s anger. The Imam also wanted leaders to respect human rights because “Allah would judge all acts of oppression. ”
Mr. Jammeh and his cohorts thought the Imam’s sermon is enough for an ammunition to arrest and detain him, the goal being to punish Gassama and tame right conscious community leaders into submission.
Imam Gassama’s November 2nd arrest followed the Imams of Kanifing, Alh. Ousman Sawaneh and Jambang Borehole in Kombo South, Sheikh Omar Colley. Both Imams spend almost two months in detention. None of the detained clerics appears in court or charged, a flagrant violation of their constitutional rights.
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It is unacceptable. We Gambians need to address this abuses by dictator Jammeh. I cannot believe this idiot violating our constitution everyday and some still keep on supporting him. He needs to go at any cost. What a bully?
This stinky president needs to be confronted head on. Well done Imam Gassama. Your fight is fisabillillahi. Allah will be with you even though your congregation betrays you.
What this fool doesn’t understand is that truth can never remain hidden. Kudos to Kairo News for putting us in the know and exposing the dictator’s dirty linen in public.
There are two things on the table: we either team up and defeat the monster or he gets rid of us one by one.
How could I ever do it with you if your state of mind is this, that, ”everyone is after his or her interest” ,in the public space?? Are we capable of realising a convergent state of mind of virtures to combat this monster??
Where is the Brikamaba village association as well as the Brikamaba diaspora? It can’t be that the imam is left alone like that by his own village people. These people must get together and lead the protest as well as the fundraising.
Kinteh, Dictator Jammeh has perfected the art of dividing the communities. With increased and chronic poverty, many hope for some benefit from him by slaving themselves and betraying their own kit and kin. It is sad, but Jammeh’s legacy is destroying the dignity within the larger Gambian family. Many people are in trouble because dictator Jammeh divide even family units just for him to get his way.
The tragedy of Jammeh’s lack of father figure in his life gave us a man determine to destroy everything that makes a society stand strong. let us all learn from his conducts and be there for our children no matter what happens in the marriage. Jammeh is seriously troubled and nothing can satisfy or fulfil his appetite. before he vacate that position the damage to the Gambia will be monumental to repair, politically we can fix things but societally it is nearly impossible to repair the harms and damages.
My observations….
(1)…Jammeh’s “war” against imams who tell truth to power, is Allah’s (SWT) way of exposing him as a hypocrite…No person who is sincere in his/her profession of faith, as Jammeh pretends to be, can terrorise imams for preaching the word of Allah (SWT)..So he is being exposed as a hypocrite, big time, by his persecution of imams who preach the word of Allah (SWT).
(2)…His insatiable lust and greed for fertile farm land is also, in my view, Allah’s judgement (“fitna”) on him..It is most probably one of the factors that will eventually destroy him and precipitate his downfall….I think he has no control over this greed for land and can therefore, not help himself..
(3)…I think communities whose lands are targeted by his scouts, and who have failed to stop him from grabbing their farm land, should not fight him but leave him to develop it for them..
At the end of the day, everyone knows that the land is their’s and will be returned to them one day…That should.serve as a kind of comfort for the aggrieved communities around the country…
Thanks Suntou, I totally agreed with you about the lack of attention dictator Jammeh didn’t have while he was a child now he is needing that every time he have a chance. This issue of Imam Gassama’s arrest and victimization shouldn’t be handle by folks from Brikamaba only but all Gambians should get up and support the Constitutional violation of the Imam’s rights. The man has not done anything wrong order than doing his religious duties by educating his congregation. All right thinking Gambians should get up and fight this injustice and any injustices going on the country. Let us keep our focus on the man and avoid any none senses he saying or doing to distract us from the main issues we are fighting on. We need to move the fighting to a different level by affecting all the sources he is making monies to oppress Gambians. Yaya Jammeh has to go and now.
Malang Njie, I agreed. It is not too late but we have to work together if not he will get rid of everybody one person at a time. Why wait when we see what he is going daily.
Fellow compatriots, this is why our noble opposition politicians got to see the broader greater Gambian people, community & general citizens’ & humanity’s dignified rights, at large, as sacrosanct, above various parties & or individualisms’…
The Gambia is politically better off under any other opposition leaderships except the Murderous kanilai Idolatrous DEVIL, judiciously than the current status quo under the Murderous EVIL kanilai Satanic Fiefdom…
Our politicians can save us the strife, quickly, by letting go of selfish egocentrism; by sacrificing to unify, even temporarily, at all necessary costs, for the long-term benefits of Gambia, citizens & humans at large…
THIS IS THE ONLY WAY, ALTERNATIVE TO PLAN B…
But collectively, we’ll turn the current Murderous kanilai banditry status quo, eventually; come rain, come shine…
Few questions should be asked: How did Jammeh know/learn about the Imam’s sermon, since he could not have been present when the Imam delivered his sermon? What narrative was sold to him and how? Those helping him grab land everywhere, did they fall from the sky or they are from our very own communities – our own sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and uncles?
This is the hypocrisy we keep talking about. We help Jammeh unleash hardship on our own people because of transient personal gains. After the hardship is unleashed, we unashamedly stand aside to complain about the events or even commiserate with the victims. How is it possible that one mortal man is able to lord it over almost 2 million people as if the rest of us are mere zombies? I prefer to point a finger at those who reported the imams. They are the real culprits. These are the people to be hunted down and mercilessly dealt with. They deserve no mercy.
That is it Mr. Camara. Those helping him grab lands did not fall from the sky. They come from very near those communities or from the very one. People in a country can sell votes for food….? they can inform on their own fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters to suit greedy giant hypocite’s taste.
One @Malang even went as far as saying, ”everyone is after his interest”,in a comment,like the forums did not serve their purpose to enlighten Gambians. A hater and a jealous person from childhood, is likely to grab peoples properties from them to ease his heart. Nonetheless, optimism for a peaceful election process and an opposition victory are high in the Gambia and the diaspora under these circumstances