Fatoumatta Jahumpa Ceesay Is Innocent Until Proven Guilty By The Courts, Not Rumour Mongers!

By Bubacarr Sankanu.

Kebba Sanneh, your rejoinder to my love letter for Speaker Fatoumatta Jahumpa Cessay (FJC) was brought to my attention. A copy of your piece titled: "Sankanu be ready to die wherever you are because 13 years is a long time and could last for a little longer still…" was printed for my offline perusal.  

Actually, I now made it a policy not to respond to low-class loosers and frustrated nonentities whose family tradition is to spread rumours and destroy their fellow human beings out of envy and inferiority complex! As my shy brother from Russia, Ngogo Borogi rightly puts it "we think Sankanu is not that cheap". I am too educated, too elite, too handsome, too princely, too romantic, too responsible and too proud to push and pull with beggars!  

When I read your peace, I got impressed. You did not trade insults like some failures; you outlined your concerns in responsible and mature manner that deserved attention. I started drafting my next article but as a brotherly honour, I decided to suspend it and dedicate part of my valuable time paraphrasing some of your pointers. 

Mr. Sanneh, I respect the Publishers and Editors of all the Online Gambian Newspapers for proving their love for Mother Gambia by taking the financial and psychological risks to provide their fellow Gambians with platforms for free speech. If I cannot continue to support and patronize them, I will rather leave them alone than waste my time undermining their work directly or indirectly. I really enjoy the way people are expressing themselves; I do laugh a lot after reading some of the postings. As you know, I am not an apprentice in this writing business and you do not expect me to believe all that people are posting on the online Gambian forums. Do you? If I cannot allow pro-Jammeh intellectuals like Dr. Saja Taal sell me water, why should I let lazy errand boys back home market me a snake in a hole or teach me investigative journalism? I am not a gullible semi-literate idiot. I am a competent seasoned analyst and I think the adjective "analyst" can be found in every serious English language dictionary. 

I am not interested in jumping into the bandwagon of this anti-Jammeh madness and I have no time for a wholesale praise-singing of The Gambia Government. Some people are so mentally retarded that any time someone talks positive about The Gambia they shout "he or she is homesick". It is now clear me that any balanced commentary on President Jammeh, FJC or any other top dog is considered "a crime against frustrated asylum seekers"; I forgot they breed on negative news from home! 

Like I said it thousand times before, I am a moderate critic of Jammeh's Republic. Is the adjective "moderate" a complicated jargon from the construction manuals of a sensitive high-tech jet propulsion laboratory or a nuclear plant? If I want to seriously become Jammeh's Image Adviser, I will not waste the time of the Online Editors. I will directly contact my ex-colleagues Information Minister Neneh McDouall Gaye and GRTS DG Momodou Sanyang. I will tell them, using my old slogan of "caring and sharing" I fondly exchange with Momodou Sanyang, to be sending me videos of Jammeh and his projects. I will repackage them using the latest audiovisual and cross media technology, replicate them into high quality multi-system Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs) and use my global distribution network (639 outlets) of African movies and media products to spread them. A special website will of course be part of the image promotional package. In the same style, if I want to join a serious anti-Jammeh image smearing campaign, I will not use our online papers. Some of the people wagging their tongues online are just thirsty dogs! 

My Brother Sanneh, I am not avoiding The Gambia because I do not care about the "peasants in Sami and Jokadu, Fatoto and other areas outside the centralized power structure and Kanilai". I am not seeking indirect ways to reconcile with the Jammeh System because I am desperately homesick. Gambia is yet to have what it takes for my business interest to thrive. The overall macro-economic fundamentals and mass mentality in The Gambia do not provide my specialist creative sector enough launching pads for decent Returns On Investment (ROI). I made a number of preliminary research and project drafts between years 2003 and 2006; I discovered that I cannot break-even for the most pilot low-intensity venture. If things improve to my taste, I will set up a Gambian subsidiary and will be jet-setting in and out of Banjul. Serious film business is not for financial dwarfs and creative cowards.  

Yes, I am a brutal capitalist and I do not believe in all these socialism nonsense. Four things make this world go round. They are: the right amount of cells in one's brain; money; power and sex! Aggressive sharks like Rupert Murdoch and Sylvio Berlusconi are my role models! To avoid serious mistakes, I am not in any rush; I am working very hard, step by step, to makes loads of money so I can have the fun of dwarfing the crazy things Richard Branson and Playboy Hugh Hefner are doing. I won't waste my time worrying over people who "will forget you after the third day of your funeral." To quote a former Permanent Secretary at the then Ministry of Education who was giving me some tips on the sucking realities of life! 

Gambians have not given me any direct or indirect mandate to liberate them and I am yet to see or receive any petition from at least 100,000 (hundred thousand) Gambian voters calling for Jammeh's immediate removal. I repeat: Jammeh can eat people raw, as long as he does not bite off my own testicles, it is not my funeral. I am not a looser and I will not waste my time with loosers; the opposition people are just useless loosers! 

Sanneh, I was very reluctant to be active on the online forums for I knew I will be wasting my time trying to justify my every argument before housemaids, drivers, errand boys, hustlers, watchmen and babysitters pretending to be more catholic than the pope or experts in real life politics. To be honest, I feel like a PHD holder in a kindergarten that is why I keep laughing over some online contents. It has nothing to do with superiority complex or intellectual supremacy! 

I am equally reluctant to be part of any frenzy to force Yahya Jammeh out of power as I do not believe in replacing the Devil I know with the Satan I do not know. I want to see serious alternative(s) to President Jammeh first, before I can spend my valuable time showing Jammeh DIRECTLY the size of what is in my trouser! Honestly writing, I am disappointed and discouraged by the ways Gambians are misusing these online platforms to bring each other down. I am shocked and discouraged by the brouhaha over Gambia Press Union-USA, the Gambian Association of Minnesota and the various personal image smearing postings. I am one million percent disappointed; watch out for the pepper soup in my next article! 

I ask myself how can people who can't even respect each, other garner enough self-discipline to unanimously face a "common enemy" they call "Yahya AJJ Jammeh?" How can people be preaching unity and solidarity when they don't even talk to their neighbours? My brother Sanneh, if the people wanting to sweep Jammeh aggressively out of power start producing sperms and eggs please dispatch me an errand boy; I will join their liberation struggle and the "total cultural revolution" with passion! While I wait for the messenger, Mr. Sanneh, allow me the pleasure of inviting both the supporters and the haters of President Jammeh to kiss my handsome, intellectual, elite and capitalist buttocks!!! 

My brother, I am not a teenager; I am just a happy young man in my early 30s. Like I told one of my ex-professors, I do not miss anything in life. I sleep like a baby and I wake up thanking The Lord for another good day to laugh at the fools. Just because some people are frustrated over Yahya Jammeh's dictatorial trails, I should worry and stress myself? I did not vote for Jammeh in the last two presidential elections but the one in 1996. The voters or the opposition leaders are the ones with cases to answer. There is little I can do about the nuclear bombs in people's chests. Jammeh has not appointed me minister in charge of angry souls and to my knowledge there is no department of state for anger dissolution. The little thing I can do is to expand my natural sense of humour; if it is all right with the readers. 

Now let's come to my lover Speaker FJC. When The Editor placed a footnote on my piece with the word "JALIBA", I emailed to thank him for the compliments as I considered it an editorial tease/joke! For, even if the whole world labels me praise singer, I will not get angry. I know, without an iota of doubt, I am not "Effry" Mbye or Sambou Susso. I have researched into my family history starting from the days of the Black Pharaohs in Aswan ("Nubia", Egypt/Sudan), Ancient Ghana Empire, Shongai, Mali, Senegal, the two Guineas down to Ivory Coast; I cannot detect a millilitre let alone a pint of griot praise-singer blood in my veins/direct lineage. At the auspicious moment, I will detail my history according to my family genealogists. But just for fun and to increase the anger of the people insulting me, I have decided to play apprentice-jaliba to my very hot darling Her Right Honourable Speaker of The National Assembly of The Republic of The Gambia, Madame Fatoumatta Jahumpa Ceesay-Sankanu, FJC! 

Before taking my musical instruments, a reader emailed me some questions for onward delivery to The Respectful Editor. Personally, I am not interested in any answer but to honour the reader's request, I am integrating the questions here. They are: Can you ask the editor what is misleading about your writing?  Can you ask him to tell us what is "devoid of truth? Can you also ask him to  
tell us what qualifies someone to be deemed as a "Jaliba"? Or even what is  
pettiness or comedy in your piece!" 

Sanneh, like I clearly indicated in my love letter, FJC is public citizen; people can criticise her, scrutinize her and caricature her but it is wicked and greedy for people to be wishing her downfall or destruction. Has she done anything personally wrong to those smearing her image or to their relatives that cannot be addressed through the Due Process of the Law? 

1. Can any of FJCs accusers provide the exact details of the venue, time and date he/she found her sleeping around with me? I know in our society people often say, "I heard, they said and I believe" without verified facts. It is hard to come across someone who says "I saw without reasonable doubts". Can 3 or 4 adults come forward and confirm seeing, collectively, FJC sleeping around with men? I think this is what the moralists are calling the Islamic standard for evidence gathering on allegations of immoral sex.

2. Can any FJC accuser provide the graphic details of FJC being arrogant to her husband Sulayman Massaneh Ceesay? In reality all married couples do have problems with their partners. So errand boys/girls, curious neighbours and house hands hearing or seeing her quarrelling with her husband is not a threat to our national security and does not mean she is "standing up to her husband". She is a mortal human being with strengths and natural faults like you and I. Some readers may find this common matrimonial challenge "breaking news" but for me it is "useless news!"

3. Can any FJC accuser give the exact venue, date and time he/she saw FJC and ex Governor Kalu making love or exchanging bundles of cash?

4. Can any FJC hater provide the exact copies of the said adult videos with venue, date and time he/she found President Jammeh and FJC watching in a compromising mood? In this age of technology when primary school kinds can use graphic software to manipulate images, mobile phone records and, forge documents, one needs to be "stubborn like Bubacarr Sankanu" not to be fooled!

5. Can any of her accusers, send me the time, date, venue, graphic details of, and witnesses, to personal injustices FJC meted out on him/her and close relatives? I am not interested in any contact with FJC but I will forward verified complaints of her accuser to her and request her to compensate the "wronged" party.

As I said, when FJC breaks the law, people can drag her to the Ombudsman or to the courts. This is how civilized people behave. She (FJC) is absolutely innocent of the allegations like a new born baby until she is proven guilty by a serious court of law and not by rumour mongers. If those errand boys and girls hiding behind pen-names are really "concerned Gambians" as they claim, they will respect my advice and not misuse the internet forums as their kangaroo courts for personal vendettas and cheap envy! A concerned citizen does not take pride in selling classified state secrets or destroying a fellow citizen! 

Most of these so-called reliable buddies are desperate people who cannot stand the difference in the standards of living between them and their superiors. I remember one day comparing the salaries of a minister and his errand boy. The minister was earning D13, 000 (thirteen thousand Dalasi) a month while the errand boy was earning D600 (six hundred Dalasi) a month! You can see how this income disparity can serve as source of envy, corruption, greed and pettiness! I was complaining about my GRTS salary but I felt sorry for this close buddy; his 600 Dalasi was just 200 Dalasi less than what I was spending in a week at that time! When I asked how he could afford to feed his family out of D600, he said the tips from the minister keep him afloat. I then made a small survey and discovered that many assistants, butlers, secretaries, guards and buddies or however you call them, are not only depending on their official salaries but also on the extra tips from their seniors to make ends meet!  

As the saying goes, you give people a hand they would like to take the whole arm. Some errand boys and girls will, after sometime, like to turn this voluntary support into compulsory income. They will start behaving funny and when they are reprimanded, instead of repenting, they will ungratefully grow feathers! They will start looking for alternate income sources by selling rumours and since they are "close" or "closer" the top ranking concerned, they claim credibility. The fact that some of them are taking pride in exposing state secrets or the smearing their seniors shows the callousness and irresponsibility in them! A serious crime scene investigation takes long time to conclude because not all those who are "closer" to the crime scene are credible eye or ear witnesses. Am I understood now? 

There was this protocol offer who once complained to me about people trying to bribe him into arranging visas. As a human being he made an exception by getting visa for one guy. Afterwards, this guy started bringing bundles of passports for visas. When he refused to cooperate, the guy started spreading stories that he (the protocol officer) was corrupt and was selling visas to intending travellers who have nothing to do with government duty. 

Take the case of a sexually frustrated man. He will kneel down and beg a lady; once the lady pities him and does him a favour, he will shamelessly tell his friends how it was "easy" for him to "lay" that particular lady and he will start calling her prostitute! 

This ingratitude and hypocrisy is what I am repeatedly mentioning in my postings. People go berserk over my writing because they are the problem not Jammeh; a leader can only lead a people. For some, Jammeh is Gambia's problem; for me, the people with their hypocrisy are the Gambia's problems! 

If you tell the people the truth they hate you and if you do them a favour or sacrifice for them, they skin you alive. Why should I waste my time and life? Journalist Omar Barrow died very young while reporting the truth; how many members of the highly praised ONE BIG GAMBIAN FAMILY are sending at least US$50 (fifty US Dollars) a month to Omar Barrow's widow and orphaned child for their upkeep? Has any lousy activist volunteered to marry Omar's young widow so she does not face the stigma of widowhood at a young age and finds it easier to be an integral member of society? 

Sanneh I consider my life so valuable to waste in defending charlatans and dreamers. I will prefer dieing in the silky and spongy arms of Fatoumatta Jahumpa Ceesay than allowing myself to be hacked into mbullet (meat balls) by Maliamugu, Bombardé & Company on behalf of Gambians who will not even mark my grave! If people convince me, I will change my mind, but for now, I am neither amused nor convinced by the entire anti-Jammeh harangue! 

Sanneh, you must have been following the stories of sex tourism in The Gambia through which old tired European women are sleeping with young Gambian boys hoping for pocket money or relocation to Europe and America. I am the first person to openly write about it. Since then it was picked by international media outlets and reported on. I know the power of my pen and the impacts of my writing; I did mention it in my upcoming commentary. 

What I am sprinting towards is that these boys sleeping with the old tourists are mostly from underprivileged backgrounds; they are prostituting themselves to escape poverty and social seclusion. This is happening at the backyards of the moral hypocrites. I did my job by bringing it to the attention of the decision makers; there is nothing more I can do. 

I am not a hypocrite or a destitute person. My love for FJC is purely natural. I started loving her since the days she was a normal journalist. On thing than turned my head upside down and increased the temperature of my blood was her tan. She has such a beautiful black skin and I very proud that she did not bleach her skin, like other women foolishly do. For the other reasons, I cannot go into details for small kids and fundamentalists might be reading this piece! I could not openly tell FJC my feelings at that time due to the type society we live it. It would create havoc and an earthquake.  

I find it unfair that men can continue to manifest their love to women until they die but when a woman reaches a certain age, if she is loved by young man, people call called it immoral. No person has the guts to tell me what morality is. As Jaliba Kuyateh sings "he ate the world, he travelled the world, he celebrated the world, he dressed the world…!" I have witnessed the amounts of crimes people who call themselves arbiters of morality and ethics are committing. I spent the Ramadan of year 2005 in Kuwait and other Arab-Muslim countries and I have seen how the so-called "Muslims" and "role models" of some local preachers are committing crimes in the name of religion, and in a Holy Month!  

If I should speak with FJC she will surely tell me that she has seen a lot moral hypocrisy that she cares the least about the idle talks. There are people out there who will, in public, pretend to be angels. Undercover, they do things, even Iblis (Satan) will not risk! When I was at GRTS, the Gambia was literarily in my pockets in terms of first class information on double moral and hypocrisy. No one can teach me morality. If it is religion, I spent six consecutive years of my life learning Islam and all its teachings. Before sitting the common entrance exams, I was advised to think of a career as "marabou" or mufti. I was told my pen has powerful impact. I was not interested in the religious career. But are they right about my pen? 

Sanneh, as you know, there is a limit to everything in life; if at all the so-called "close buddies" did move from criticising FJC for normal check and balance to destroying her, I would not have come open to confess my love. I would keep it in me as I have been doing for the last 14 years. Now that the whole world knows I love FJC, anyone who wants to destroy her image will have to destroy me first. She is my woman, my potential wife, my big girl! 

Unlike those frustrated boys sleeping with expired white women tourists, I do not need any sexual comfort. The fact that I said "if she were still single, I would marry her" show how serious I am with FJC. If I do not marry FJC; I am not interested in making her a mistress just to "cool off". She is not that time of woman. In fact you people should be commending me for having a good taste. FJC's weapons of men's destruction on her chest and her back are still in perfect order and need no servicing! I am sure FJC's female friends and colleagues will be very jealous when they hear that a "talented young man", handsome, serene, "skilled and professional" is globally confessing his love for her and dying to defend her image! If William Shakespeare were alive today, he would re-plot and re-title his "Romeo and Juliet" story into "Abubacarr and Fatoumatta!" Can any one contact the Guinness Book of World Records about the Gambia's most romantic confession of the century? 

I do not want money or job through my love for FJC. For the records, when I wanted to leave GRTS I confided in FJC, then she did not know that I have long since fallen for her from head to toe. She advised me not to leave as a brilliant career awaits me. She was right as she is yet to lie to me. I equally contacted a lot of decision makers at the time and they all advised me to stay. If I was self-centred or frustrated, I would have played ball/politics and will today be a "big boy" in Jammeh's Government. I was only interested in doing my job as I had a lot of fun in squeezing the microphone into the mouths of the fat cats and asking out the dirty things in their pot bellies. I left because of lack of professionalism; the same thing I am saying about the errand boys calling themselves reporters. I left due to in fights and dirty politics; due to the lack of a clear-cut boundary between technocrats and politicians. 

Are these not some of the issues people are complaining about here? How may people making noise on these online forums will be ready to voluntarily give up a unique chance of become somebody in their home country without much stress? I strongly believe I have already paid my dues to Gambians by sacrificing a picture-perfect and glamorous career for the sake of The Gambia. My departure was a diplomatic protest and personal sacrifice as I denied Jammeh's Government the chance of making best use of the content of my brain. I have no regrets for I know if I return home, I won't earn a living as a rumour monger! 

So no one has the moral authority and credibility to tell me that I am blindly embracing Jammeh's Gambia. Even if I choose to go back to The Gambia and continue from where I stopped inside Jammeh's Government, who has the moral authority to stop me? I do not have time for those Muruntan Xhulu (Sarahule definition for uncircumcised people)!  

My brother Sanneh, I like this sentence "fantasizing being with older women…" There is a joke from the war of the sexes that men do not marry wives but mothers. Haven't you heard men complaining that their wives try to "mother" them sometimes? FJC can mother me biologically and I can marry her biologically; who dares stop me when she is available for grabs today? 

You see I am not a hypocrite we all men fantasize about women. You want to tell me you do not fantasize about any tantalizing lady who ambushes your eyes for just a second? You want to tell me when you and your men-friends meet you only complain about Yahya Jammeh and his actions? I am sure you would talk about the women in his life. If at all you share the same tastes for exclusive highest quality natural products with me, you would tell your interlocutors that Tuti Faal is more first lady-like, more delicious and juicier than current First Lady Zainab Suma Jammeh. Sorry My Brother Jammeh if you are reading; I do not mean to commit treasonable/seditious offence. We are just doing some common bad boy talk here. You know, one of those boy-to-boy things! 

Sanneh, Yahya Jammeh can tow as many women as his muscles can carry; it is not my business. He can even open a "harem" at his Kanilai Palace as and long as he does not force women or and under-aged girls in there, je m'en fous. I will even help him in sampling and casting the brides if he asks me for coaching advice! I care more about the question: is Jammeh doing his Job? I want Gambians with voters' cards to provide me the answers not any angry hustlers flirting with computer keyboards abroad. Likewise, I do not want to hear an excuse from any failed local politician crying for a new raison d'être or savoir-vivre. I am not interested in knowing how my "rounds" Jammeh can do or with whom he sleeps. Period!  

Do not miss my next article… 

Bubacarr Sankanu alias The Serene Prince of Taste

Bubacarr@gmx.net