Rising food prices:-United Nations Says “SILENT TSUMANI” –People in The Gambia cry blood in silence!

By Hammadi Maasinah
 
 
 
Thinking about the  rising food prices, one cannot miss the fact that it is indeed affecting the world’s population especially HIPC(Heavily indebted poor countries) like ours. This is so scary for obvious reasons. There is the specific and the general part of the whole fiasco. The general phenomenon is where the whole world is faced with a  challenge while running along the perimeters of compelling forces. Forces related to the high demand for gas as a  commodity that helps maintain communication via sea, air and road networks. This obviously makes gas a “gem” for buyers and sellers. It also makes it a “gem” for the consumers, who certainly cannot always reach destinations (where what they want is being sold) as pedestrians. They must either pay the fares of taxis or buy gas to drive their own cars to and from places where food is being sold! The latter therefore is not a matter of choice, instead it is a matter of survival. Even those who use donkey carts,wheel barrows or their own wrists or heads to transport sacks of rice home cannot escape the “wrath” of the oil industry and/or governments feeding on taxes. They must pay the difference on value added taxes.  Now this is where a clear line will be seen between reckless regimes of the world and those who care to leave good legacies behind. In The Gambia we have one of those reckless ones, if not the most reckless regime in the world. At least in Dakar people are talking. They have talked so much, to the extent that the President of Senegal succumbed to that pressure therefore ordered  rice from India . What about Banjul ? Who dares talk?
After all with all this noise being made in Banjul our nation’s capital city aren’t we concerned to say the least? We are of course! Lest we forget what the old adage stands for “A hungry person is an angry person”. This is where we need to learn lessons and avoid being so childish only to be baffled by a fool like Yahya Jammeh. Thus see the latest food crises as a political ploy from the west. Do not rule out anything when it comes to Yahya Jammeh’s crazy propaganda machine. That would then be one of the fattest lies one can ever hear from Banjul my good friends. Leaders like Yahya Jammeh have always been using this lame excuse of an “imaginary” war with the west even for mishaps that are mainly caused by his OWN HEAD! You know during the post colonial era many leaders in Africa particularly those who came thru the back door with muddy boots and stained denims have always been laying blames on easy targets even for anything wrong they themselves create. Such people are spitting on the legacies of great leaders like Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba. Shame on Yahya Jammeh, Charles Taylor, Samuel Doe and their likes! All they are/were engaged on is/was trying to steal the very comfort created by great minds like the former. They inherited a clear path but at the end have laid so much garbage on it! AFRICA I AM SO SORRY!
In actual fact those great minds were selfless fighters who should never be compared with some of these “renegade” heirs. Even whereas Sekou Toure  may not be in the good books of many (save) mine he was able to make sure that Guinea Conarky became SELF  sufficient as far as food is concerned. Guinea had enough through out the 26 years of Sekou Toure's rule. Sekou’s days saw the exportation of pine apples, plantains and mangoes to destinations as far as Moscow . Also Nkrumah’s time saw the making of the Akosombo dam. That hydraulic power plant was built to export power to neighbours like Ivory Coast , Benin etc. It was the era of Pan Africanism without hatred and xenophobia. Former President Houphouet Boigny also saw the bumper harvest of cocoa. Ivory Coast in an outstanding way competed producers like Brazil and Columbia .
 
When all is said and done we should sit down and reflect on our own short comings instead of blaming the west and the rest for everything bad in Banjul .
Even Robert Mugabe cannot be compared with Yahya Jammeh when it comes to farming and exportation of food. We all know what Zimbabwe represents in that regard. Only  if they were left to work on their arable land. Figures have already revealed this shocking reality. It is only 7% of Africa ’s arable land that has been tilled so far. Can you imagine? Who is to blame for that one also? The West again?
 
The west of course has done so much against Africa taking into consideration the side effects of  slavery days and colonial days! The latter  is going to stay with us as an eternal historical insult. We know that! People should work to make us move on now. We already know what the west did to Africa during slavery days and colonial days. Do we need people like Yahya who gather "jabbering" from confused drunkards to teach us clear history? These are facts we have read and digested from books like Basil Davidson’s or Franz Fanon’s. There are others like Paolo Frera’s etc etc. I can bet Yahya Jammeh would not even get a pass if he were asked to analyse one paragraph out of those books.  I have been seeing his parrots trying to swim thru that literature in a helpless way. They may as well find out where we drank from one day. Was Basil Davidson an African? He was not. You see being good and bad does not know origin. One is either evil or civil period.   Africa has always been swimming against all odds and it will continue doing so at any rate.
But does that mean we should not farm and feed ourselves? Not at all. Tilling the land cannot be politicized, it is a natural exercise that has been here from the times of hunters and gatherers! For goodness sake this is about human existence period. Today Brazil is leading many places when it comes to the production of cereals and the like. This indeed is not the end it is just part of the means. Brazil ’s grains have been “hoarded” for other purposes like the production of ethanol gas. This means more grains are needed to produce ethanol. What are countries like The Gambia doing? A country that has fresh river water of 500 KM running along the length of the whole territory?  Even without rain Gambia could have been a source of food for many countries in that area or even beyond. On the contrary all we hear from the armed bandits under Yahya Jammeh are blames upon blames. As far as the agenda on gas emissions and the fight against global warming is on countries like ours need to think deep and grow more grains to feed our selves. Let no one fool you fellows on this as usual. Beware of those political “tranquilizers” Gambians receive every day. It is not! This is a serious issue at hand. If Senegal , Burkina and other countries who have more to eat than we do are crying. Then ask yourselves what is happening in Banjul ? What is stopping our consumers from demonstrating? Certainly no one dares demonstrate in Banjul out of fear... BUT!...Yahya Jammeh should also know this is a volatile situation that is more of a security threat than an armed insurgence. When people start dying of hunger they will react violently. That reaction will not be about power, it will be about survival. It has already reached the center of Banjul ..
Today we have seen a world facing challenges like the Elnino effect or global warming. This trend led us to a place where bio-fuel is being “courted” thus help reduce the demand for petrol, kerosene etc. Alright this means more grains are being reserved or used to help answer to a call from a warm earth!
This is why we as poor countries have a long way to strive against this killer wave of hunger. This is why we have to spend in wise way and consume in a prudent way. This is why we do not need a regime that spends so much on organizing beach parties for state guards who kill for the sake of a president and grill meat after killing the country’s citizenry. This is why the Gambian President should stop using a private jet, sell it then buy more agricultural equipment for our people and food as well. This is why we need to encourage small medium enterprises along the river banks only for us to  produce, process, consume  and then export food from The Gambia. This is why we do not want a regime that gives priority to festivals over buying our farmer’s peanuts. This is why we constantly keep on predicting a bloody Gambia under Yahya Jammeh.  In all this Yahya Jammeh’s state guard Commander Sering Modou Njie and General Snail-Lang Tombong Tamba are organizing an end of year party? For who?  A state guard battalion? Snubbing the rest of the army, police and the Gambian people?  At the beach for that matter? The beach which is so close to the Albert market where Gambian families are struggling to buy  kilos of rice at dear prices? The same guards are celebrating because they have been defending a president who uses $70000(USD) worth of kerosene when ever he flies with his private plane only to be passing  “night life” in Morocco and Guinea Conakry?  For the specific this is where leaders like Yahya Jammeh can be a heavy burden and a liability for any country. Where is the difference between rising against Yahya to be killed or waiting to die in bed because there is no food in the kitchen?  Either way one will die anyway. The state guard should have been taking turns in Jahaly Paachaar by now producing sheaths of rice for our citizens to buy at very low rates! Yahya Jammeh should have been subsidizing the efforts of the department of state for education by adding more food to help maintain an effective school feeding program. If our kids can be assured of good meals at school from Monday to Friday it  would mean a lot to their helpess parents. Where is the Jammeh foundation Yahya? Useless liar! That is why  it pleases me when I see Yahya Jammeh-sympathisers on line trying to see offence in what we write against this caravan of armed bandits! Yes it pleases me when I see them realize my harsh side cause I will never ever reserve a soft side for Yahya Jammeh. Anyone who says these writings are not shaking Yahya must be really out of touch. Ask Yahya why he blocks IPS then. One day or the other these writings will send Yahya out sooner than many expect it to happen.
 
Have a good weekend!