By Plarke M. Caneckouteh, London UK

Whenever the British sing Britain for British or French shout France pour les Françaises the non-citizens quickly become nervous and feel uncomfortable and scary. They spontaneously respond by accusing them of xenophobia and racism. They are easily seen as people spreading hatred against outsiders. It could be true given their past involvements in other nation’s businesses both in the past and at the present moment. I am not endorsing the present EU policies on immigration, but if we look at it deeply and analyse it critically from another context, they are simply telling the rest of the world that they love their countries and they are prepared to go out at any length to jealously guard them from anybody whom they think wants to destroy their heritage. They are nationalistic to the point that they will never comprise with anybody who is out to destroy their peaceful and stable nations, be it their fellow citizen or outsider. This is why their leaders are duty bound to behave well while executing national duties they are elected to perform. Citizens in the West will never comprise the integrity of their nations and are always prepared to root out any stupid leader who wants to mess them up. Those who are familiar with the histories of the West and other stable economies in the world would agree with me that these countries fought several battles against both political and religious dictators who wanted to ruin them. They never allowed them to survive forever. Guided by true nationalism Europeans rose against their wicked dictators and overthrew them. Today, they are breathing freedom. They proudly walk and sing loud in their streets, in bars and openly challenge and criticise any public officer who misbehaves in the management of their national affairs.

I am not positing that the western systems are perfect, for there is no perfect system in the world. But the systems are set on structures that ensure accountability and transparency. The tenets of accountability are allowed to operate and inform the people about what is happening in each country. In other words, the population is a well-informed one and is capable of responding appropriately in the national interests. In the West the only benevolent dictator is the press, which is the voice of the people. The press is a dictator with a difference because it can be sued and drag before the court of law for any irresponsible reporting. This is part of the checks and balances that ensure sustained and balanced development that keeps this part of the world ahead of us. It is no magic but true democracy and not sham democracies sustained by threats, brutality, killings and imprisonment. Such democracies will never bring real development in any nation. What such democracies bring is sufferings, miseries and poverty. Today we are paying the price of not being patriotic and realistic. We bow down to the dictator to accept second-class citizenship in other countries with all what it entails to be a foreigner. Those who refuse or unable to move are reduced to nothing other than living like caged animals. They are dehumanized to the point of becoming timid beggars in their own homes. These are the wages of unpatriotic citizens!

Today our country is besieged with hardship to the point that our young population lose faith in their lives and are now committing suicide into the Atlantic Ocean. The young energetic lads who should be proudly attending schools and colleges are now paying thousands of Dalasis to die in the Atlantic Ocean because they have no hope of survival in their own land, a land which their parents toiled hard to develop. What a tragedy? Any time I click on the BBC online and see the pictures of neatly packed young men, it reminds me of nothing but pictures of the slave ships lining the Atlantic Coast of West Africa. Tanjeh Beach has become Porte Sans Retour, that infamous slave house on Goree Island in Senegal. This was the door through which captured slaves left to board slave ships and never to return. Now our beautiful and lively Tanjeh Beach has become the last gate for our young talented Gambians to depart us forever. May God bless them and have their departed souls rest in peace. It tells me how desperate these young men are!!! It depicts the cancer we have in the country that is driving everyone into poverty. This epoch of modern slave trade and slavery created by the idiotic and greedy dictator who has swindled all our funds and living large in our faces. Well, White men who were outsiders mainly carried out slavery and slave trade but our own so-called elected leader does the current one. Whose fault is it? He rudely insults our elders and us and mocks the decent religion at his own liberty. He maintains an expensive zoo and diverts our funds to buy and feed animals. Gambian wild animals are now hunted to feed lions in Kanilai, fish are directly bought and sent as animal feeds in Jammeh’s zoo, creating artificial shortage of the only affordable food for the general mass thereby, driving the price of the fish so high to a point that people cannot buy them. This is Jammeh’s theory of development. But despite the lucrative business in fishing, fishermen have abandoned fishing and join the fishing of young men. Young men, who are ashamed and tired of languishing in poverty and hopelessness and prefer to perish in the Atlantic Ocean. May I ask if this was what “Soldiers with difference” a popular gospel during the wee days of the coup, supposed to mean?

But as I look at the situation it invokes some literal images by great philosophers and writers like Voltaire, Orwell, Shakespeare, Marx, Plato and another living freedom fighter the Great Nelson Mandela who sacrificed his life to liberate both black and white South Africans. It invokes a burning inspiration that freedom is never picked on a Silver Plata. It is earned. It is fought for. It is jewellery that must be achieved with great sacrifice. Mandela is a living example for those who are oppressed in their own country by their own people. Mandela fought for 27 years and liberated South Africa but ruled for less than a decade and stepped down. So who should tell us that Gambians couldn’t do the same like Mandela? The freedom and dignity that Gambians are now yearning for need a visionary leader who is prepared to lay down his/her life to salvage the country from drowning. If we choose to be silent and remain meek we will be systematically eliminated one by one. Six years ago, if you would have told the likes of Major Abdoulie Conteh, Pharing Sanyang, Pierre Mendy, Baba Saho and many others that a day will come the monster will betray them and hang them, probably they would have denied it flatly. Where are they today? Where is Major Bajinka and other fugitive soldiers? They must be regretting now for all the atrocities and corrupt practices they allegedly pedalled over years. With their beautiful houses, families and comforts they are in the run or living in Baba Jobe Hotel’s (a shameful metaphor for Mile II Prisons) in misery and shame. Today where are the profits or benefits of being wicked or corrupt?

Then what is the meaning and use of the Army in The Gambia? Who are the soldiers of The Gambia National Army (GNA) serving? Who are they protecting? Do they actually know their roles in building modern democratic society? A British who frequents The Gambia and was lucky according to him to witness the takeover and subsequent elections after the coup once told me he was shocked when he saw the Gambian army with heavy artilleries in political campaigns only to turn around and see another group of soldiers frantically dancing and shouting praises to the President in a political rally. This tells us what type of soldiers we have in the GNA. Then should one be surprised of their defeat and butchering of some of them in the Farafenni rebel Attack? It is not only shocking but also silly to be wasting fuel and such large entourage of soldiers in political campaigns. So what is the role of the army? I might be wrong because I have never been one. But my exposure taught me that soldiers are there to guide the state against external aggression or eminent troubles/threats within the country that may lead to national crisis or conflict. Am I wrong? Instead of concentrating on preparing themselves as professional soldiers they spend all the time dancing Affijang and fucking about. Pathetic, isn’t it? Unfortunately, we have soldiers who are gallant in shooting and killing defenceless people. Is that bravery?  Is that what we use our national resources to train them for?  I can recall when the late Robert Gai urged Ivorian soldiers to shoot the protesting population who were protesting against the unfair election results, they refused and turned against Gai and sent him away. Do we have soldiers with those nationalistic inspirations to defy Jammeh’s orders of killing innocent people? Well, I might be wrong but I doubt it. They are only fools and cowards who shake like leaves during the Hammatan season. They are Zombies as the late Nigerian Musician Fela Ransome-Kuti aptly described them. All their bravery is tested on the weak and defenceless civilians. So we need a Christ-like leader to save that nation. In fact, we may not need that strong force as Jammeh is such as a coward that he ran to hide in his State House bunker when a mysterious plastic bag was sighted in air at Denton Bridge (Sarro), as reported by The Echo a while back.

My message to the soldiers, NIA and other Security apparatus in the country is that they should refrain from politics and allow our political and legal structures to operate. The Army Chief of-Staff should know his role as a professional soldier and as a citizen of the country. I have seen national security and intelligence agencies in other parts of the world. They never interfere with political systems and structures of their countries. They never torture their own people in the manner our security agents are doing. Where are Saho and Hydara today? What I know of intelligent agencies is to use their intelligence to get information intelligently or detect crimes or troubles and not by brutal beating of the accused. Use your heads and not your might. Behave like professionals and refrain from brutality.

To my fellow united Gambians, we need to join ranks and turn the direction of the country. We have to stand firm and get Yahya out before it is too late. We have nothing to lose except our chains. A group of bandits cannot be allowed to perpetuate poverty and misery for the whole country. Yahya is taking us for jokes. Can all of us remember how he started?

In 1994/95 the junta set a timetable for the transition, which was initially four years but reduced to two years due to pressure from our development partners and home. He stood at the Independence Stadium and shamelessly lied to the whole nation that he will step down after the transition. Did he step down? Yet we continue to him and his thugs, soldiers with a difference. After changing to so-called civilian rule he rigged the elections and manipulated the Constitution to remain in power and rob the nation. In his so-called development strategy he swore to The Holy Quran on several occasions that Gambia’s electricity problem will be an issue of the past. It will be a history, he told the nation. Has electricity become history?  To camouflage the situation he went and bought an idle, rustic and worn out generator waiting to be disposed.  How long did those scrapped generators live? They are now environmental pollutants at Koto Power Station. He again went around making stupid promises to farmers and other producers of crops that their crops will have the best prices ever. What happened? Farmers received vouches for years without being paid. There were no funds to pay farmers but there were enough funds to set Youth Development Enterprise and forming partnerships with other construction companies. How many farmers stay hungry with their families during those periods?  This is yet another development. To keep Gambians silent about their miseries the Kanilai Cheat and Falster came out with the oil theory. He shamelessly went on national television to show the Gambian population and the world his newly discovered oil on a disc. Can you imagine how brave and bold this man can lie in front of the whole world? Now where is the oil? He even set up a Commission for Petroleum Exploration. What is happening to that project now?  In this last election campaign he was threatening constituencies that they will not get his projects in their areas if they did not vote for him. The man has nothing because his money laundering programmes and the pedalling of drugs and blood diamonds had been discovered and blocked by the international drug control bodies. This is why he is trailing behind the Iranian leader for money. Now it is the cure of HIV/AIDS and Asthma Programme.

I think we now see the reason for setting this programme. It is a means of soliciting money from businesses and private individuals. Yahya is bankrupt and trust me. He has set a Trust Fund for his bogus HIV/AIDS Cure programme. Does he actually need money for that so –called programme?  He got whole materials from his garden in Kanilai and those shrub bushes between Kanilai and Cassamance.  So what is that money for? For digging roots and cutting leaves? He is really mad and probably thinks we too are mad.

So my fellow Gambians, this is not a magical question, which is unanswerable. We need to come together and unseat the idiot. It is a shame for all those brilliant and brave Gambians to be threatened by a small boy like Yahya. The monster has nothing to offer apart from tricks. He is just creating scenes to divert people’s attention to the burning issues of the day. The fool is mortgaging our lives like an estate agent mortgaging houses. How long will we continue to put up with this rubbish?