Western Tourist Reacts To Gambia's 45th Anniversary

By Nigel Speakman, Tourist
I read your newspaper everyday now. Since I got involved with the scouts in the Gambia I have had quite a crash course in political despotism and its affects. Of what a glorious institution the NIA is and the sad state of the Gambia's political institutions. However, what has finally got me to write was the article about your President blaming the British for your country's lack of development. Well, that is just not true and everyone knows it.

What Is The First Lady Zeinab And Family Doing In US?

Jammeh Celebrates Independence Without The Presence Of Zeinab And Family

By A Staff Writer

Wife of Gambia’s President First Lady Zeinab Suma Jammeh, and family arrived in the United States few days before Gambia’s 45^th independence anniversary, the Freedom Newspaper can report. The First lady is being hosted at a Washington DC Hotel. Details are sketchy about her presence here, but sources said she left The Gambia when the nation was in preparation for a national holiday—marking Gambia’s 45 years of nationhood. The First Lady comes to the United States for three reasons: Annual medical checkups, Disney World vacations, or shopping spree.

Independence? What Independence?

By Baba Galleh Jallow

In a classic work of historical and political theory, the German philosopher of history Reinhart Koselleck discourses a “space of experience” and “horizon of expectation” that may be used to chart the trajectory of historical evolution. Koselleck suggests that the past, the present, and the future are all part of a single movement of historical time within which society is embedded. Today’s “space of experience” was yesterday’s “horizon of expectation.” In other words, all human actions in the present are informed by past experience and motivated by future expectation. It is within this framework of historical temporality that I propose to examine the idea of African independence, which, I will argue, represents a myth for the great majority of Africans on the continent.

Jammeh Threatens To Arrest And Jail People Circulating His Family’s Pictures

As State House Issues Press Release Warning Culprits

By Staff Reporter Modou Gibba, Banjul

The entire Gambian nation were stunned Wednesday, when the office of the President issued a terse press release— threatening court action, and possible jail term “to individuals, groups, and organizations, who portrayed the image of the president and the First Lady’s Family on the worldwide web and elsewhere, without the expressed prior consent and permission of the Jammeh family, the Freedom Newspaper can report. According to the news release, which was hand delivered to the Freedom Newspaper Banjul Correspondent by a staff of the State House, the President and his family expressed strong reservations against the mass dissemination of the Jammeh family pictures to parties who do not have the legal right to circulate or distribute such photos.

Gambia Is In Human Rights Crisis, As We Celebrate Independence- Darboe

“After forty five years of nationhood, we should be able to point at tangible progress that positively impact on the lives of the ordinary citizens.  We have borrowed millions of dollars and dalasis which in some instances have not been properly utilized.  Our children and grand children are now lumbered with this huge debt burden,” said Darboe in a statement issued marking Gambia’s 45^th independence anniversary.

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My fellow Gambians,

 This is the forty-fifth independence celebration.  Nearly half of the present citizenry were not born when The Gambia became independent; for these Gambians comparison is not possible between then and now. Independence entailed installing a government led by our own kith and kin as administrators and political leaders.  The yearning then, as it is now, was to move from the underdevelopment and poverty to a steady improvement in the lot of the average Gambian.  This was in fact the wish and expectation of all newly independent peoples.