What Obama’s ‘Political Earthquake’ Means for Africa

By Alagi Yorro Jallow

In 2010, seventeen countries in Sub Saharan Africa celebrated the 50^th anniversary of their independence. In honor of the celebrations, President Obama recently hosted a meeting at the White House with young leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa. The young leaders shared their thoughts about youth empowerment, good governance, and economic opportunity and discussed their hopes for the future.

Is the prisoner from Gambia a persecuted journalist or an impostor?

Jerusalem Journalists Association and International Federation of Journalists wage two-year battle to free Bubacarr Ceesay from prison for being illegal infiltrator; Ceesay claims fled persecution for being journalist in native Gambia.

By Tomer Zarchin

So is Bubacarr Ceesay a courageous investigative journalist who fled his native Gambia because he was threatened by the authorities, whom he had criticized? Or is he an impostor, seeking asylum in Israel on the strength of forged press credentials? For two years, the Jerusalem Journalists Association and the International Federation of Journalists has been waging a legal battle against the Interior Ministry's Refugee Status Department, which believes that Ceesay, who has been held at Saharonim Prison for the past two years, is merely an illegal infiltrator.

VOTE APRC OR “NO-DEVELOPMENT” – YAHYA CAMPAIN MANTRA

By Burama Jammeh

Yahya and AP(F)R has abused the rights of Gambians beginning with the overthrow of Jawara’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP). He has since continued to rule the nation under the pretense of democracy with periodic elections that are anything but “free and fair”. These elections registered known non-citizens, incomplete/inaccurate electoral registers, no practical petitioning/verification process since there is no standard documentations that earn a voter card, no separation of government and AP(F)RC and above all intimidations and inducements at actual casting and counting of casted votes. In addition Yahya has absolute control over Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) including who gets hired or fired. Yahya even threatened Gambians at the many campaign rallies that elections will not remove him from power, he sacrificed his life and no way to hand over power to the corrupt even if he looses. He also threatened the largely illiterate voting population that no vote for him means “no-development” for that area/those people.  It is obvious the basic divisions of roles and responsibilities in democratic governance do not exist in Gambia and Yahya is A – Z.

President Jammeh Leaves Banjul Wednesday For Equatorial Guinea!

President Yaya Jammeh will on Wednesday be accompanied by a high powered delegation to attend the 17 ordinary session of the African Union Summit in Malamo Equatorial Guinea, the state media reported.  Mr. Jammeh will be  at the Banjul International Airport at 12 noon.  The general public have been asked to be at the airport to see off the Head of State.  Members of the Diplomatic Community, including state Ministers are expected to be at the airport to bid farewell to Mr. Jammeh.  Mr. Jammeh, has been arch critic of the African Union. He criticizes the body for its failure to condemn the election of Alassane Ouattara. Mr. Jammeh opines that Ouattara was the handpicked “Presidential puppet” for France. The Gambian leader publicly rallied his support for his onetime friend and close ally Laurent Gbagbo, who he described as the legitimate leader of Ivory Coast.

Boycott the 2011 elections

By A. Koroma

The discovery of 4 truck-load of APRC supporters, transported from Mauritania to Banjul and accompanied by the Gambian Ambassador to Mauritania, for the purposes of registering them to vote in the coming General Elections under the most dubious of circumstances is yet more indication of the determination of the corrupt and repressive regime of Yahya Jammeh to steal the 2011 elections, as he's done in successive presidential elections, since the first, in 1996. These latest developments in the vote registrations exercise warrant serious consideration by the opposition to boycott the presidential elections in 2011 as a means of drawing the attention of the international community to the corrupt electoral process - a process that needs to be supervised by external parties to ensure a fair and transparent registration process regime of Yahya Jammeh.