How Many Think Jammeh Is Gambia’s Biggest Problem?

By Gambiano

Jammeh doesn’t see himself as a problem. And most Gambians inside Gambia agree with him. Those outside with a different telescope can trumpet that cattle fly. That’s fine with wisdom because it listens to even a donkey’s bray. But please don’t brandish lies about a majority of Gambians disliking Jammeh when some of you haven’t visited the Gambia for over a decade. Jammeh liked or Jammeh loathed, some of his cardinal adversaries have acquiesced to his effrontery. Today, he remains an esoteric chamber of himself—an accident, perhaps parenthetical to Jawara’s overstay.

Jammeh has been a problem. And he started the day he might have figured who murdered Korro Cessay but instead basked in reticence. That was, perhaps, AFPRC’s original sin—and now behold, O that Gambia of once peace and innocence! Like a ravished virgin, smear thy perfection with foisting stains on that glow of fabric! Scribble against the once immaculate lines of your transcript, gory ends of Deyda Hydara or [Sergeant] Ello Jallow, algorithmic disappearances of Chief Manneh or Kanyiba Kanyi, and dastardly assaults at your shrines of sub-regional envy—for you’ve yielded to the reality your brazen today embraces at the expense of your coy  yesterday.

But the message isn’t about Jammeh’s evils or the Gambia’s litany. Is Jammeh Gambia’s biggest problem? To those who just want to see him go, he is. But the Gambia has other problems. That’s why you see a new organization announcing itself every two minutes—hyperbole intended! Such a tiny country, yet too numerous organizations each acting as has never consulted reason. There are more diaspora organizations, today, than are political parties in The Gambia. To each of those groups, commonsense says “Go ahead! Keep sprinkling more benedictions on Jammeh!”

THAT LOUD DIASPORA GAMBIAN

For how long have you barked than thought intelligently? And how has that barking helped? If anything else didn’t it cost you Viber or Skype? And now you can’t talk to your relatives in The Gambia without a fortune to calling card blood-suckers—hounds that love to benefit from Africa’s lasting poverty. Yes, Jammeh is a problem, but perhaps not the biggest and only problem! He is an immediate problem that needs intelligent action.

THAT QUIET, HARDWORKING DIASPORA GAMBIAN

But please don’t be quiet all the time. Just be reasonably so and wisely carried. And articulation doesn’t entail hurling curses on air. Some of you have to work multiple jobs to feed families back home. Some of you entertain a drudgery to attain legal status. Some of you are too immersed in academia, too occupied for unproductive indulgence.  Each time I write, I write for Gambia first—then for her people. When you write for Gambia’s people, it may well be for a specific demographic. But when you write for Gambia, it’s for all kinds of Gambians. And sometimes I can’t help the moist eyes. Why? Our people are without!

And some of us lucky to frequent shores of the Sterling and Dollar are more interested in making a name or showcase individual success than help Gambia! Some of us are too infatuated with attention-seeking to engage in wise intellection. If Jammeh is a problem, so are you! If Jammeh is selfish, so are you! And if Jammeh doesn’t care about Gambia, so don’t you!

THAT GAMBIAN WHO REALLY WANTS TO GET RID OF JAMMEH

The reason many coups failed against Jammeh haven’t, perhaps, been fully discussed yet. It looks like very few of his enemies really know him let alone tackle him well. That’s why it’s been twenty years now! If you want to remove Jammeh with a bird’s head from your marabouts, please go ahead. And since both you and Jammeh are customers of the same sale—black magic—you’re outside the guidance of Allaah each time you consult such dark forces.

It remains a question of whose black magic is stronger. This is why since 1994, we do hear about a black cat or bull sacrificed somewhere in The Gambia. Or a human skull discovered in the woods. Unless Allaah wills it, you and your marabouts won’t easily remove Jammeh. A preponderance of Gambia purchases the art of marabouts to the chagrin of Islam.  And so? Offending Allaah with that occult makes it work usually amongst its subscribers. But why couldn’t our ancestors use the same against the Whiteman who herded them to slavery and much havoc?

BUT WHAT IF JAMMEH IS REMOVED IN THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS?

You think that will solve the biggest problem? Ask those NCP stalwarts who used to pray that Jawara dies or suffers a coup! Please kindly remind them of their supplication and watch the response. That’s why it’s prudent to offer solutions than lamentations. And here are mine again:

1. Let there be term limits in Gambia, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Conakry, and Mauritania.
2. Let all the armed forces in these five countries be amalgamated under one chief. After each five years, the army chief will emerge from a different member country. You may ask why only five countries and not the whole of Africa? They won’t listen! Tell me I’m wrong.
3. Let each member country rivet this in their constitution: Any military coup against a democratically-elected member government will be vehemently battled by a unified coalition army of all five nations! Won’t this ensure stability? It will also be a path to a United Africa.

And trust me, that’s the last thing Wall Street wants—a United Africa! They don’t care if more Daba Marenas and Ello Jallows vanish in The Gambia. In fact, they won’t stop Jammeh from visiting Washington. Nor would they bar Zeinab from frequenting Disney or embarking on shopping sprees. Yet some of us can’t learn a thing. They keep lobbying British and American magnates.

But ask yourself: Can’t Washington stop or remove Jammeh in seconds if they consider it a priority or care about our pain or “struggle”? In the same seconds can they freeze his assets just like they can stop him from travelling? But again, do they care about us “Niggars”? I want Jammeh to quit power. But there’s one thing I crave more: Stopping another Jammeh from emerging! And certainly, forming too many organizations in the diaspora won’t stop that.

Let our scribes send missives sincere to Macky Sall

And supplicate that Senegal’s  virginity doesn’t fall

To some military brute bereft of a patriotic sense

Who’s but filled with valor faked—or greed intense

Let chimes ring of an alliance stable and praised

Among five of our coastal shores blest and raised

By the music of providence and its swash of the Atlantic

Where beaches of glee, with golden sand remain fantastic

Gambiano821@gmail.com

Ends