Laws of Democracy: Samsudeen Sarr Says Never Mind

By  Foday Samateh

 “I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know:” Mark Anthony

Yahya Jammeh’s disdain for democratic laws isn’t a debate anymore. Even the ones he put in the books. That question had been settled long since anyone cared to remember. What else would anyone expect? He came to power through unlawful means. And either by the reflex of instinct or paranoia of insecurity he has employed those same means to consolidate his throne. The open secret is that he has made no secret time and again about his unlawful schemes to cling to it.

But for Lt. Col. Samsudeen Sarr to stand up in the ringside, stamping his feet, fisting the air, pulling the ropes and cheering on at the top of his lungs as his former puppet-master spews his periodic sense-defying spasmodic rants is beyond ridiculous. It’s unashamed preposterous sycophancy. Any serious voice commenting on a national issue of any country would be embarrassed to think, much less utter this balderdash:

[Jammeh] …sounded perfectly normal to me when the last time in his angry mood said when it comes to Gambia’s national security, the Constitution and the laws of the country were secondary in his agenda. (1^st Sabarry essay, August 11, 2009)

For starters, what is perfectly normal about a president in angry mood vowing to gutter the Constitution and the laws of the country for any reason? The most perturbing disappointment about Sarr’s fanatical endorsement is that a man with his demonstrable claim to gumption would add his voice to something so devoid of reason and sense. If Jammeh is allergic to comprehending things as they are to think that the laws are the price to pay for national security, everyone else knows that national security and the Constitution are not an either-or options or mutually exclusive. 

The inauguration after every election is mandated by the law for a single purpose: the swearing-in of the president-elect to openly and freely declare his intent and duty to follow the letter and spirit of the law. During those moments, Yahya Jammeh places his right hand on the Holy Koran to take the oath to defend, protect and uphold the Constitution without fear, favor, affection or ill-will at all times. Repeat: at all times, not just sometimes, not only when it’s convenient, and certainly not only when he’s in a happy mood. And as soon as he says “So help me God,” the contract of trust he enters into as president with the people is consummated. He is now legally and morally bound to do just that. All the pomp and ceremony marking the occasion are just “secondary in the agenda” of inauguration. So if he willfully acts in contravention with the provisions of the Document of National Consent, imperfect as it might be, he stands in clear violation of the sacred oath to God and country.

The obligation of any honest writer choosing to speak on the matter was to tell Jammeh this: The Constitution establishes the sovereignty of The Gambia and empowers the President to keep the peace, maintain law and order, and secure and protect the people from all enemies of the country foreign and domestic. That is as broad a concept of national security as it can get and it in no way constrains the President from performing his duty required by the office. The reason Jammeh is charged with the responsibility of defending national security like no other Gambian at this time is simply by virtue of his being the President, an office created by the Constitution. The powers, privileges and reasonable exercise of discretion that come with the office are all identified and defined by the Constitution or relevant statute. Among them is the unique power of Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, the most important institution for the defense and protection of national security. The Constitution is thoughtful enough to trust him with the power to declare a state of emergency in the event of a grave threat to national security. It doesn’t in any shape or form constrain him to defend the country. Hence, no conceivable reason exists to ditch it in the name of national security. Any claim to the contrary will surely sound very abnormal to both logic and commonsense.

Sarr can make all the happy talk about discerning a reason where none exists. He is secured from authoritarian lawlessness in the safety of Newark, New Jersey in the law-abiding world, oceans apart from the combustible atmosphere of The Gambia where the Constitution and the laws become secondary in Jammeh’s phantom agenda. Sarr doesn’t believe for one moment in his heart that it is a normal condition for any country to have the Constitution and the laws declared null and void as long as the President invokes national security. Why then has he given these reasons for migrating to America?:

Having America and losing The Gambia is the best thing to happen to my family, and me especially, when I look at my children today. They are also very much appreciative of my decision to bring them here where they consider their permanent home now. I was always afraid of their future as a soldier in The Gambia’s post-coup-d’état era with a justifiable fear that every day I left my house to go to work could be my last day in this world. The frequent agony of encountering death, the atmosphere constantly impregnated with conspiracy and betrayal, the superstitious mentality of having more faith in jujus and marabouts than God our Creator and above all, the occasional pain of seeing men under my command killed or others being killed by them was a lifestyle I was happy to abandon for good…But in America I am thankful for realizing my greatest potentialities, enjoying the best freedoms, the diversity, the culture and certainly the people. If there is anything I should tell Jammeh therefore, it should be to praise him rather than blame him for letting me go. By my judgment, everything that I was supposed to do for The Gambia had been done in the same way I accept that The Gambia has finished offering me everything it could for the rest of my life. And I thank God for it. (2^nd Sabarry essay, August 20, 2009)

Once again I rely on Mark Anthony and say after him: “Bear with me; my heart is in the coffin there with [Gambia], and I must pause till it come back to me.”

Let us assume for the sake of argument that a certain law or a particular provision of the constitution unreasonably deprives the President of necessary authority or power to defend national security. Jammeh still has no iota of reason or justification to beat his chest on television like a championship boxer to render his readiness to defy the law. He can simply redress that precarious eventuality by employing another power bestowed on him by the same Constitution he thinks so little of. All he has to do is send draft legislation to the National Assembly seeking to amend the particular law or provision.  If he makes his case to the assembly and the country that he isn’t wantonly amassing more power for the imperial presidency, but gives a compelling explanation for the intent and purpose of the amendment with the purview of a robust, effective set of tools for national security, any reasonable legislature, and a lapdog one he already has for that matter, will pass the bill and send it back to him for signing.

Jammeh has no authority to throw away the Constitution to satisfy his mood swings. He has also no authority to choose what laws to abide by. I was going to remind him about the sacred oath to God and country, but he is already snickering and saying with that sarcastic petty-dictatorial grin: So what? I guess Sarr too will echo that cynicism with an earth-shaking salute before breathlessly blurting out to “the alpha and omega”: Yes Sir! Whatever you want Your Excellency. 

Has it ever occurred to Sarr how readily Jammeh likes to remind the nation whenever he hires or fires a cabinet member by monotonously prefacing his announcement with, “By the powers conferred on him by the Constitution...”?  For Jammeh, the presidency means only one thing: power without limits or restraints. That mindset will never change. He hasn’t transitioned from the Chairman of the military ruling council to the President of the Second Republic, and he never will. For Sarr of Newark, New Jersey, that’s absolutely alright, especially when “the sole ruler” comes out screaming and scaring the country as the Fangbondi of national security. Sarr may accuse me of harping too much on one bad note. He might even take refuge in the time-tested mea culpa to claim that his endorsement of Jammeh’s unthinking man’s harum-scarum pronouncement was a slip of the fingers on the keyboard, and that the error hadn’t be caught during proofreading. I will accept that pretext but for this in a third essay:

In 1996 and 1997, Gambian dissidents determined to overthrow the government respectively attacked Farafenni and Kartong military camps from Senegal. Altogether, nine soldiers were killed in the attack at a time when the dust of the coup has not quite subsided in the country. The attacks were foiled in record rapidity but created an atmosphere of insecurity and fear in the country that we thought was going to negatively impact the tourist industry needed to flourish for the economic health of the country. To alleviate the concerns of the frightened public therefore we had decided to hold a press conference at the army headquarters broadcasted on TV where the individuals involved and details of the attack were explained to the public and press. It was all legally wrong because according to the law, cases of that magnitude under investigation could not be treated in the manner we did…If I were confronted with the same dilemma, I would have still done it the same way. (Essay on Dead Ghanaians in The Gambia, August 31, 2009)

There you have it: The self-deluding notion that the laws can take a hike because Sarr or Jammeh is confronted with the more important task of defending national security. But Sarr is very economical with the truth in the above quotation. Certainly the law didn’t bar him from holding a press conference to brief the country about the law enforcement efforts after a serious national security breach, and assure the public that the situation had successfully been put under full and complete control. The law would permit him to inform the country on how the attacks happened, what the casualty rate was, what damage had been inflicted on the nation’s infrastructure or national security installations, how many suspects were involved, how many of them had been apprehended and what kind of criminal charges they would face. What the law wouldn’t empower Sarr or Jammeh is to hurl suspects before TV cameras and gun-toting soldiers inside the military headquarters and scream at them to confess their heinous crimes. That’s what we have the courts for. The judiciary is an entire third branch of our government. Sarr’s adamancy to do the same thing all over again after knowing the fact that he would be breaking the law should earn him an Oscar for honesty; and then an instantaneous recall of the gold statuette for highfalutin disregard for the law.

It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that his self-righteous declaration of intent run linear from him to others on the receiving end — traitors or prisoners of war they might be. But he was singing a whole different song when he found himself on the wrong side of lawless power. His readers still feel agonizing with him in Coup D’état by the Gambia National Army as he gave a heartrending account of his horrendous detention at Mile Two Maximum Security Prison. He ended up on Death Row just 24-hours after the coup leaders appointed him Minister of Trade and Industry. By his narration, Sana Sabally and Sadibou Hydara, two of the coup leaders acting as the law or lords unto themselves, decided that he and other senior military officers were a grave and gathering threat to national security and so drove them to the notorious “hellhole” and locked them up there. He was on Death Row for ten months without the right to any semblance of the Due Process, because the Constitution and the laws were just secondary in the agenda of the military ruling council. He was at the mercy of unaccountable men who proclaimed themselves the law and decreed their actions on the dictate of the state of their mood.

Even in his recent essays under critical review in this series, Sarr’s unmitigated hatred for Edward Singhateh is palpable. He still wouldn’t forget and forgive the former Defense Minster for insisting and persisting with the other members of the military junta to seal his and other “security” detainees’ fate with extra-judicial execution. According to his account, Edward sought their execution to ensure “national security” as advised by Valentine Strasser, another lawless, unlawful military leader, of Sierra Leone. Wait a second, it just flashed in my mind that the Constitution had been suspended during that time. I remember more: by that same serial, compulsive violator of laws, Jammeh and his band of law-flouting coup leaders. Sarr and the other detainees could have been hanged or shot in the back alleys of Mile Two, because the leaders of the country unbounded by all forms of judicial restraint thought that national security necessitated it. Just like Basiru Barrow and others, as Sarr wrote in his book, were arrested and executed, and then the next morning, the rulers of the country empowered by draconian decrees lied to the nation in a manufactured announcement that the slain soldiers had died in a shoot-out with loyal forces as they embarked on a treasonous mission to overthrow their own treasonous junta. Only by some divine intercession Edward couldn’t get his wish of having the security detainees killed as well, because Jammeh’s mood wasn’t angry enough at Sarr and his fellows, and so they continued breathing in that grueling condition.

Like in all such lawless circumstances, mistrust and suspicion soon divided the ruling council and the precarious situation turned itself into a vicious cycle. Sana and Sadibou were nabbed and driven to Mile Two to join the security detainees, because others decided that it was in the best interest of national security to throw them behind bars. Sarr told us the full story of Sadibou. Before his fall as the Interior Minister in charge of Mile Two Sadibou had famously expressed his willingness to arrange the burial ceremony of any detainee in his prison rather than show them humanitarian sympathy — that gem of nature, that last place of hope for those in desperate need —  when they require medical attention. He had nothing to worry about because he was then the law. But after he had been whisked to his prison, tortured with electric shocks, clubs, rubber truncheons and sodium water, and later needed critical medical help for a preexisting heart condition, Edward, his fellow coup leader and successor as the junta’s man-in-charge of the security detainees, denied him access to indispensable hospital care. A victim of the situation of his own creation, he dropped dead in his cell. The overarching explanation for his sad fate was that the Constitution and the laws were just secondary in the agenda of colleagues he had fallen apart with at his expense.

And the Constitution has never been restored to its status as the supreme law of the land to be binding on every action of the government, because national security has been proclaimed primary in the agenda of Jammeh. That’s why Sarr would later write:

Spending ten months in Mile 2 from a personal experience was enough to teach me how to seriously avoid re-entering there. In 1999 when I thought I could once again go there for the false allegation that I physically attacked my boss [Baboucarr Jatta, the Army Chief of Staff], I left the country for good. (2^nd Sabarry essay, August 20, 2009)

I referenced all these instances from his book and essays with no intent or purpose whatsoever to equate the wrongfully-detained officers of the security forces with armed and dangerous rebels who could care less about the indiscriminate taking of lives on their violent mission to overthrow the government. I’m highlighting the consequences of self-righteous application of the law or disregard for it. The law is more broadminded than Sarr and Jammeh are willing to give it credit. Simultaneously, the law can accord certain rights to even the most hardened criminals, empower the law enforcement with adequate tools to protect national security, and preserve the essence of civilization from descending into brutish anarchy. 

Sarr is opposed to violence as a means of political change. His unequivocal concern about its ramifications is a recurring theme in his book and essays. That is a noble thing. And I sincerely admire him for that. Indeed, he isn’t alone in pondering over this consequential prospect for society. Countless others and I strongly share this concern. But violence is not inevitable, nor should it be a permanent pending condition or state of nations. Logic and experience in other parts of the world prove that in relatively ideal circumstances, only the psychopath launch violence for change. If only so many presidents wielding undemocratic powers share this philosophy and unclog the arteries of change for democracy to flow thorough the veins of society, there would be less political heart-attacks. If they make the Constitution and the laws primary in their agenda, how wonderful so many miserable and wretched parts of the world would be or become.

But in Sarr’s judicious mind, the blame for malaise and mayhem in those parts of the world must be assigned in a different direction: “I now know that the world suffers more from unhappy, stifled people trying to do good than it does from those who are simply content with themselves.” Really?! Obviously, this isn’t the voice of Sarr on Death Row in Mile Two begging and crying for the intervention of people who were unhappy and stifled by his unjust incarceration. This is the voice of Sarr, the Americana, enjoying life and family in New Jersey, and never having to worry about that dreadful midnight knock from a petty dictator’s minions or secret police.

And talking of America, Sarr would love to see the land of the free and the home of the refugee make its most sacred national document — the Constitution of the United States — secondary in his agenda of quest to punish Joe Wilson, the recalcitrant Congressman  for yelling “You lie” to President Obama during a joint session of Congress:

The only reason I think the man could act in such a silly manner is because, like most of the typical rednecks in the country, he still cannot accept the reality of a black man leading this nation. Such a disrespectful gesture had never been directed to a president and the office he represents throughout the history of the nation. But Obama, who is way more evolved than these retards, humbly accepted the man’s apology. The precedence created in failing to punish the Congressman will in the future encourage more heckling of future of presidents in the middle of their speeches. I argue that such actions should be totally illegalized through retroactive legislation to punish the man who occasioned such enactment. (The Self-Preservation Instinct Syndrome, September 14, 2009)

I agree with Sarr on everything he said in the above quotation except the part, “retroactive legislation to punish the man who occasioned such enactment.” I only hope he was merely venting the justifiable outrage millions shared at the Congressman, since I assume he knows that in America retroactive laws are unconstitutional, given their cancerous danger to democracy itself. And thank God, the US President dare not go on television and issue threats in the name of national security to ditch the centuries-enduring document of rule of law, just because he is in an “angry mood.” Since I understand that Sarr is a fan of Churchill, I wish to remind him of an adage of the British political sage: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Churchill made the remark not when he was in power, but when he was informed that he had just lost it. For both the leaders and the led, democracy is the best hope for freedom, justice, liberty, and peace in all their complex wholes. Yes, from time to time, it can be messy, noisy and inconvenient.  It even allows a xenophobic Congressman to spit racist bile and vile on the leader of the free world, the President we all love so dearly. It also allows an immigrant who fled for his life and limp and freedom of expression from a petty dictatorship in his native homeland to freely air his outrage at a son-of-the-Confederacy US Congressman in the land of Constitution without being lynched or thrown in the penitentiary. God Bless Democracy!