London Letter: Pa Mbai does it again!

The last time FREEDOM shocked me was about five years ago – when the Daily Observer published that “LIST OF FREEDOM INFORMERS”. Or rather, I should say the Daily Observer’s and Jammeh Governments REACTION to FREEDOM shocked me. No one had ever heard of FREEDOMNEWSPAPER then, but the Daily Observer’s ill-advised action in publishing that list made you a house-hold name.

Today I was equally amazed to see a Government of The Gambia letter, from the Minister of the Interior no less on your website – sent to you by authority of the Honourable Minister! The letter was written to the world’s biggest bank HSBC based here in London UK.

I am amazed that Honourable Amadou Samba contacted you on this matter at all – let alone get the Interior Minister and the National Drug Enforcement Agency Boss to write to the HSBC. The best policy would have been to IGNORE Freedom newspaper.

The letters from the Interior Minister and the NDEA Boss will NOT stop any investigations that may have been started here. Infact, it will all have the opposite effect – the investigators will become even more suspicious because of the high powered denial by the Interior Minister.

And yet, reluctantly as your former “enemy”, I must take my hat off to you Pa Mbai! You have established yourself as a heavy weight newspaper  - a paper which it seems can no longer be ignored in the corridors of power back home!

PS. If I was at the Daily Observer, I would have published the Interior Minister’s letter in the Daily Observer – which after all is owned by Amadou Samaba!

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Editors note: Thanks Mr. Halake for the compliments. For the records: The documents from the Interior Minister Ousman Sonko, and Khalilu Njie  were emailed to us by one Jeremy Jones, Director of Jones Agency, who acted on behalf of Mr. Samba to demand a retraction from us.  We have since retracted our story and it is time to move on. 

Regarding the Freedom Newspaper hacking case, you have reminded me about my worst moments as a journalist. This was the day when the Daily Observer endangered the lives of innocent Gambians by invading into their privacies. The Daily Observer Newspaper betrayed journalistic ethics by publishing false information coming from an unknown source(s) claiming that Mr. M’Bai had defected to the ruling APRC, and the list of subscribers were his informants. Many were tortured, and forced into exile because of the Daily Observer’s reckless action to compromise information of our esteemed subscribers. 

Interior Minister Ousman Sonko issued a press release on the day in question calling on the Freedom informants to report to the nearest police station or to risk being arrested. Tombong Saidy, MP Duta Kamas, and dozen others were interviewed by the NIA, including former BBC reporter Lamin Cham.  Mr. Cham in particular was brutally tortured.