Yahya Jammeh and First Lady Fight Over Fatou Jaw Manneh Case. Watchman
Yahya Jammeh and First Lady Fight Over Fatou Jaw Manneh Case. Watchman
Yahya Jammeh and First Lady Fight Over Fatou Jaw Manneh Case. Watchman
 
Intimacy levels between Dr. Yahya Jammeh, Chief Oppressor of Gambian citizens, and his spouse First Lady Zainab Jammeh are at an all time low due to Fatou Jow Manneh. In a sign that even those close to the corridors of power have a conscience, First Lady Zainab Jammeh has been harshly criticizing the President's foolish insistence that the beleaguered and heroic Fatou Jow Manneh be taught " a lesson". As the dynamic of Hillary Clinton's fight for the Democratic nomination shows, women tend to close ranks when they get the impression one of their kind is being piled on and the first lady's instincts are no different from any other female's. She is utterly disgusted and wants her husband to bring the journalist's fate to a dignified end.
 
State House contacts have observed that the First Lady cannot hide her contempt for the President's infantile exhibition of power. She treats him condescendingly in the privacy of their quarters and although well mannered and polite to all staff, there is no hiding the fact that the relationship is severely hampered by the president's stubbornness. What is even more outrageous about the president's behavior towards the first lady is how he has been  telling anyone who would listen that his wife is "moody" nowadays due to post-partum depression in the wake of their son's birth. This not only shows Yahya Jammeh for the callous individual that he is but also reflects his social perspective on women.
 
The first lady is aware that even if Jammeh's pathetic courts hand him a victory, it'd be a hollow one at best and a pyrrhic debacle at worst. Every single day that goes by without a judicial and objective finality to Fatou Jow Manneh's case increases her reputation as a symbol of resistance to the Jammeh regime of shame. It  also reduces his assiduously  earned reputation as a swift punisher of enemies and rivals. Ms. Manneh is not rotting in jail like the less fortunate victims of the APRC. In fact, Yahya Jammeh secretly admires her guts and has been telling confidantes that Ms. Manneh would have made a perfect member of his government if only she had chosen the right side. In prolonging the farce of charges that his hack lawyers have ginned up against a brilliant and courageous journalist and not dealing a coup de grace to her credentials as a pe rson and respectable human being, Yahya Jammeh has allowed his reputation to sink into an irredeemable abyss.
 
It is this sophisticated fight between hard power (Yahya Jammeh) and soft power (Fatou Jow Manneh) that the first lady shrewdly observed a long time ago and came to the conclusion that it will do her husband's already tattered image no good. Soft power is like jujitsu. It takes whatever hard power throws at it, absorbs it and adapts to counter it without changing the basic nature of resistance. This is the gist and lynchpin of the struggle between journalist Manneh and the APRC prosecutors. Her soft power will inflict a lot of damage to the Jammeh legacy before the case is mercifully closed. Even more damaging to President Jammeh is the fact that the first lady's relatives are worried about the fate of their daughter in the hands of someone who has been far from chivalrous in dealing with a woman he despises.
 
 First Lady Zainab Jammeh is pleading to end the Fatou Jow Manneh's case not only because she is a woman but also because every time Jammeh pulls a trick to delay justice being served, her own family dreads what will happen to her if Jammeh finds fault with their already dysfunctional and symbiotic union.
 
The Watchman had not commented on the Fatou Jow Manneh case before because whatever the outcome, Yahya Jammeh loses and Fatou Jow Manneh wins. While Yahya Jammeh is operating on a justification of keeping power at all costs and pillaging and looting to do so, first lady Zainab Jammeh functions on a more humane plateau of respecting the rights of others and simply being fed up with the jarring visual effect of a woman constantly being dragged to jail like a common criminal. It should be noted that first lady Zainab Jammeh detests the negative influence Isatou Njie Saidy (the hippo) wields over her husband. The first lady believes, rightly or wrongly, that President Jammeh respects what the hippo has to say but barely acknowledges her when she tries to give input on matters of state. "You are my wife and Dr. Njie Saidy is my minister!" Jammeh says to his wife every time she tries to give sensible advice. One can only imagine the frustrat ion of The Gambia's first lady who had she been married to a more decent individual could have enjoyed the natural goodwill and love of The Gambian nation.
 
The most potent force responsible for first Lady Zainab Jammeh's secret advocacy for Fatou Jow Manneh's release from state torment is envy. While Fatou Jow Manneh has shown a knack to defy power, terror and wealth, Gambia's first lady has been seduced by the luxury and aphrodisiac that residing at the pinnacle of provides. Like her caricature of a husband, she grudgingly respects Fatou Jow Manneh's indomitable attitude in the face of the Jammeh regime's hounds and wish she could muster the courage to free herself from the shackles and stench of a stagnant "government".
 
Alas, she knows, like all of the cowardly ministers of the APRC, that she's in a mortal Catch 22: she realizes she cannot imagine what it means to be courageous, she has to act on that conviction. But is she prepared to pay the price at the hands of a retarded dictator?
 
The author can be reached @ Gambiaswatchman@gmail.com
 

Posted on Monday, April 28, 2008 (Archive on Wednesday, May 28, 2008)
Posted by PNMBAI  Contributed by PNMBAI
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