BY SARJO BAYANG, UK
What Gets Jammeh Going for 11 years?
How to Stop Him.
Political scientists and civil society advocates have spent long enough time in search of answers about what keeps Jammeh going in a period most Gambians grow profound hatred for a man who forced his way to become president of our dear country. Politicians have taken things for granted by engaging Jammeh on a platform unknown to them. They have also failed to recognise the environment that permits Jammeh to prevail over a nation where about half the population hate him rule them.
JAMMEH THE FAILED
LEADER!!!
Some people believe Jammeh is sustained by magical and juju powers. Others say it is gun power that keeps him going. Only few would have bothered to explore the environmental factors that play to keep Jammeh going this long. This would have been earlier explained but nothing bad in presenting the same case in different context for the benefit of variety.
What exactly do we mean by Jammeh's environment; an environment that requires not only conscious attention, but has to be recognised and be destroyed. By July 1994 when the military toppled Jawara from power, Gambia was already baked for a seasoned democractic society. Political life was considerably civilised. Jammeh engaged the political system pretending to retain democracy as was known in Gammbian politics. Both the social and the political environment played favourably for Jammeh's deceptive games. He moved crowds who saw politics as just another mode of socialisation. Tribalism and ethnicity have never been so negatively abused in the body politics of Gambia as now displayed by Jammeh like an open wound.
Jammeh needed the international environment. He threw away his army uniform and told the world he was stepping out of the army into his pool of dirty politics. Because there was no war, all the embassies and foreign diplomatic ties remained as it was before the 1994 July coup. Britain moved with a hostile travel advice for fears about Gambia growing into a military dictatorship. They have not been wrong as we now witness Jammeh's wild ambition to keep Gambia as his personal empire while openly working with rebels to snatch the Southern region of Cassamance from neighbouring Senegal. At start, all these bad plans were not discovered expect by very few critical observers.
Now Jammeh has outlived his deceptive politics. His ambition to become a life-long president became known when part of the Gambian constitution on the term limit was disgracefully butchered to suit Jammeh's selfish interest and personal greed. He started to eliminate his close colleagues; who society believe hold some of his treacherous secrets. He built an empire of yes men and women at first from all ethnic groups. He later narrowed the catch to his own ethnic group. Now whole Gambia come to know the ethic bias of Jammeh's appointments. He has succeeded in destroying the social environment that sheleterd him over the 11 years since July 1994.
Earlier in his days in power, the international mafia network identified Gambia as a virgin spot to venture their operations with a president who is not only novice but mad about becoming rich overnight. That is how Gambia became and still remains a focal point for money laundering, international financial crimes, and resting ground for the world's best known/unknown mafia operatives. Jammeh was swelling in personal wealth and openly told Gambians over national radio and TV that his source of wealth has been Allah's World Bank. He built roads, a new airport terminal and coastal infrastructure to impress his Allah's World Bank invisible investors. While doing that many in Gambia saw what they considered new development initiatives. Now been implicated in the blood diamond and other international dubious money dealings, the financial environment of Jammeh has not only been exposed, but severely destroyed as he continues to face court cases about serious financial transactions never known by Gambians before.
March 2006 caps it all. Jammeh is now at war with rest of Gambian society. He continues to destroy families, threatening and terminatimng lives, and at least disgracing people all along believed to be his political fencing poles. Now they are no longer there for him. As we journey with Jammeh in his greedy venture rising from rags to riches, he had it all but destroying it all at the moment. He grows violently unmanageable. Where civilised Gambians bank on democracy and rule of law, Jammeh boasts of his capability to spill the blood of over 200,000 (Two Hundred Thousand) Gambians to quench his desire for prevailing a forced rule over 1.5 million suffering population. There is no doubt that Jammeh's ambition is not feasible especially over a period all the beans are being spilled and all the can of worms scattered.
Even at this fast diminishing moments of Jammeh's false glories, there are people downhill who think they can roll back the impossible. These are men and women hiding behind computer screens and flashing their poisonous ideas as if we lived in stone-age Gambia. In their spineless bid for cracking they want Gambians to believe that Jammeh has done so much for Gambia that he deserves to stay for life. If those of you and Jammeh have your senses playing clocwise, what an insulting message is that for rest of civilised Gambia! With even a minimal population of very seasoned and sincere persons, it is the most disorderly and retrogressive motion of time that one person is given more than ten (10) years to misrule a nation. We woun't take it even for the most competent person and therefore not for Jammeh whose only ambition is to ruin Gambia and run with the loot elsewhere for personal enjoyment. To this it can be added, all those who think Jammeh has to be given one more hour to preside over Gambia need mental exmination.
We have seen what kept Jammeh going 11 years. We don't let him stop. We have to stop him. There has been considerable progress along the road to stop Jammeh going before he stops Gambia going. Jammeh has exposed his wild ambition and sequentially destroyed his wider environment. What the media is doing now is showing how Jammeh is being systematically detached from Gambia by exposing him regularly. That is on progress and can't just stop. It is unfortunate that some of his guys who refuse to raise their heads fail to see the light. Other greedy persons have faced similar fates and nothing less for Jammeh and his lot. Time is up that we stop Jammeh before he stops Gambia going as a nation.