Why Yahya Jammeh Defeated the PPP and How He Beats the Opposition -The Watchman.

There has been a lot of chatter lately, by Gambian voices on the internet, about the food hardships being encountered by Gambia's wretched populace and how its grossly inept mass murderer Yahya Jammeh, gives not a whit about who starves or who gets to scavenge or who feasts. The obvious waste of talented commentary is enunciated by the fact that the global food crisis is the topic du jour for most news outlets. This phenomenon is not unique to our beloved country. Why give it saturated coverage at the expense of more strategic concerns? While others, some journalists, politcal figures and intellectuals to be exact, have been fretting about the price of commodities and opining on all forms of available media, the butcher of Banjul has gone about willfully consolidating his influence base and gearing up for any final assault on his monopoly on the reins of power. This avalanche while not impossible will likely not materialize. Yahya Jammeh's opposition is in disarray and most tragically, too timid to match its opponent in intensity.

The Achilles Heel of Gambia's exile and intellectual opposition is its wimpy insistence on decency and civility in taking a stand counter to the insidious values the APRC gang has successfully gestated within the confines of the small republic. Armed uprising is frowned upon, explicit language is implicitly and unequivocally condemned and radical approaches to reform are distilled to the point of emasculation. It could be said, with force of fact, that Gambia's people while universally admired for the gentler nature of their beings, are cursed with a conscience that ties their own hands from freeing themselves from the grips of an utterly contemptous and disgraceful dictator.
During the reign of the PPP cadre, the elite business class was totally complacent in its confidence that their partners in ensuring the gravy train continuum, government insiders, would hold their end of a Faustian bargain and aggressively protect them from usurpers. To behold the workings of a rich household circa 1987 was to get a crash course on decadence and entitlement. State coffers were siphoned to protect profligate tycoons, the priviledged class was oblivious to the sneers and envy of the less empowered among them and lived their eveyday, opulent lives like a never ending fairy tale. So long as they threw left overs to the appreciative peons straggling at the lowest rungs of society, went to Meccca and obeyed the time honored dance of political patronage, the status quo would indeed hold against all odds thought the old regime players. Not even the close call of a botched putsch in 1981 hardened their resolve to hold on to power at all costs. They paid for the lapse by their unceremonious and coerced abdication 13 years later. They trusted the gentler nature of Gambians to a fault. They took us for granted.

Enter the bloodthirsty Jammeh outfit that sashayed into office, guns firmly held onto, with idealistic promises of a return to a more equitable society albeit one that actually never existed. Their rhetoric was soaring, their young dreams inspired many but underneath it all, their criminal mastermind, Yahya Jammeh, knew he could not trust the goodwill of the people if he wanted to hold on to power for a while. So he rearranaged the contours of power within the administration to suit his thirst for supreme control, he got rid of perceived rivals at the hint of slighest trouble and forced Gambians to face a reality that they were not taught while under the auspices of the Jawara government: that life was nasty, brutish and short and if they wanted a longer existence span than most would expect, they better fall in line or else.Gambians at home have no choice. Their Catch-22 is being endured with clenched teeth and slightly bowed heads. This stench of evil is alien to them. How they wished they had someone or other fighting for them. How they wish this would end.

The Gambian opposition and its intellectual, artisan and professional class was supposed to be the knight in shining armor for all afflicted by the blight that is Yahya Jammeh's embarassing misrule. They have failed in heart rending ways to make a positive mark or difference in the stagnant plight of the suffocating nation. They have resorted to self censorship, refusal to sacrfice the luxury of their locales for a prominent role in the struggle to recapture the hope that is being strangled out of our nation and most annoyingly, back pedalled from entering action with boldness by employing the mechanisms of networks, media, organization, and aggressive funding to thwart the plans of a sinsiter dictatorship to drape every inch of our land under its defiled, blood soaked and unholy flag. The Gambian exiles with all their potential cannot mount an effective opposition movment against a dumb regime even though it has the immense technological wherewithal to do so. For 10 dark years, Gambia's opposition has retreated from taking the most difficut part to resisting Yahya Jammeh. Their biggest excuse: we, all Gambians, need to carry a moderate conversation about how to advance the cause of freedom back home without resorting to groundbreaking measures that might rock the boat.

It is these effeminate calls for moderation and "dialogue" that the likes of Bubacarr Sankanu, his new cohort Ebou Conteh and some Gambian journalist resort to when cornered with ideas different from their entrenched, lazy and woefully conservative approaches to the Gambian impasse. For the likes of Cherno Baba Jallow et al, the bigger enemy is journalism. They would rather covertly attack a fellow media member for perceived lack of standards than cajole the Daily Observer for its court jester proclamations on behalf of king Yahya Jammeh. As I see it, any form of expression outside the confines of Gambia so long as it aims to expose the ignoble deeds of a petty thief of state passes the standard of journalistic ethics because at least we know the source of iinformation has not succumbed to the ravages of propaganda. If anyone remembers well, the New York Times was duped by intelligence sources in the prelude to the Iraq war of 2003 and has more or less apologized for its stance and worked non-stop to recoup its reputation by publishing thorough investigative pieces on the ineptitude of how the war is being run. So Sankanu and Cherno Baba Jallow and Ebou Conteh, if even the New York Times has flashed unflattering instances of bad judgment and myopia, it behooves me to ask: what makes you think Freedomnewspaper, Gainako or AllGambian.net are immune from the vagaries and fluidity of print journalism?

There are other media outlets that allot their precious commentary space for only a select and boring few. The same old clique keeps writing in the same old manner. Infact, one of these publishers has a penchant for hosting his confessed admirer Bubacar Sankanu at the expense of views contrary to that of Gambia's pretender to the throne of all things good in journalism. Which brings me to the fate of Fatou Jaw Manneh. This is a case for catharsis amongst journalists. Ms. Jaw Manneh's case should be aggressively and skillfully converted into a cause celebre of not only the fate of freedom of expression but about the plight of Gambian society in general. Instead, disparate, atomistic and uncoordinated moves characterize the haphazard direction that Gambia's overall opposition has taken. Every faction is bent on self-aggrandizement and in doing so, fails to recognize the need to lose petty battles but win the important war of taking back our country from a dangerous madman. Of all figures in history of resistance to the APRC, Fatou Jaw Manneh (with the exception of Deyda Hydara) is the most admirable, the most courageous and the most potent symbol of what could be. She is an absolute hero to all that harbor a smidgen of optimism in the fate of The Gambia. All of us are minnows compared to this gallant lady, the Athena of African journalism.

So what will the endgame be between us, the opposition, and them, the APRC? If the Jammeh junta is allowed to elongate its rule and in doing so come to deceptively believe that only it is worthy of administering a beloved country that is equally owned by all Gambians, we will be the ones to blame for the tragic delusion and the subsequent disasters that ensue. If however we signal to the home government that we are fed up with the denial of liberty for all, if we let it be known that we demand decency and respect in how our loved ones are treated in our absence and if we announce in stark terms that we will leave no stone unturned, no alliance unexplored and no means considered in overthrowing the yoke that a hideously bloated burden the APRC tyranny that Yahya Jammeh's deeds have created, then maybe the excesses of the present will be scaled back in the name of love of country above all and maybe after all these years, Gambian decency and the gentler nature of our beings will still win out.author contact gambiaswatchman@gmail.com