Ebrima Papa Colley (Gambiano)
It’s for people like these in the above photo that we established forGambia News. It’s for them that we write what we write! We never get any money from this and we never want to! But Dear Ousainou Darboe, Halifa Sallah, Sidia Jatta, Mama Kandeh, etc.,
We love all of you. In fact, each of you has a Gambian somewhere that loves you more! But we love Gambia more because that tiny sliver of a candy inside Senegal’s taste buds doesn’t look at party or identity politics. It simply looks at patriotism, nationhood, progress, peace, and prosperity.
The millions wasted on the draft constitution only to go back to the 1997 Yahya Jammeh constitution is macabre. It means we claim to correct Jammeh’s mistakes, but gung-ho on retaining the same errors. It means someone is clamoring that Jammeh entrenched himself in power for twenty-two years only to fetish the same route.
It means the utterance “Yahya Jammeh was bad” is merely part of a lexicon for others to justify their rise to affluence, power, greed, corruption, and longevity in the bubble. It means it’s high time we coin a Jammeh paradox of “He’s evil, but I’ll keep his laws, ministers, cars, life style (including sending my kids to America to live for aye), or even his 1997 constitution to keep me in power!”
But Barrow isn’t the author of The Jammeh Paradox! The strings are being pulled from afar—from Paris via Dakar. Again, for simplicity, the Jammeh paradox refers to trumpeting the evil in Jammeh, but still sheltering in his constitution, other laws, cabinet ministers, closing of media houses, arrest of journalists, etc.,).
Remember in July of this year when France’s Macron came out to say that Gambia and France had entered into a financial agreement of €16.5 million and another one earlier for €30 million in the November of 2018? France still has some of the poorest people in Europe and still struggling with the Yellow Vest protesters who have been calling for better lives!
They may claim the money is for water or electricity improvement in The Gambia. But reader, please tell me what has improved in Gambia’s pathetic electricity and water supply! Instead, that money, if any, went somewhere in keeping imperialist tentacles in The Gambia.
The E.U was funding ECOMIG forces. When they told Barrow such wasn’t sustainable with incessant renewal of mandate, France saw an opportunity to grab little Gambia and add it to fourteen other African countries that France siphons $500 billion from annually.
So, that France will do everything to keep Barrow in power, even if it means utilizing the Yahya Jammeh paradox! But what exactly is in Gambia that France wants? When England left the E.U, a lot of European countries getting their seafood from Britain’s waters were stopped from the access.
The Europeans need fresh fish from other territories. Gambia is one of the few in Africa still green, natural, and untouched. Don’t tell us we never informed you when you wake up tomorrow and there is more and more fish shortage! And please don’t forget what the Chinese are doing too!
But it’s not just fish, crude oil, other minerals including black sand that bigger powers are stealing in The Gambia as I type these. There is something else! Gambia is a business hub and a geopolitical magnet for almost all major powers from antiquity to present.
Please look at Google maps and see how close Gambia is to both Europe, United States, the Mediterranea, the Middle East and almost all ancient civilizations! Perhaps this must be why the biggest name in human history for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (Kunta Kinteh) could have only come from our little Gambia!
Nigerians, Ghanaians, Sierra Leonians, Guineans, Congolese, Zambians, etc., don’t have the same geopolitical significance as little Gambia! I have a discussion with a young Gambian who was in the business of driving imported cars from Europe, but sent by other Africans to Gambia, only to be driven by land to the final destinations in the sub-region.
In 1987, Argentina and Britain had a war. Britain had to use Gambia to refuel its fighter jets because of our location! I was a little boy playing in the fields of Brikama when these screaming jets would interrupt our fun, at the same time pique our gaze. Until recently, the United States’ NASA was using Gambia for the emergency landing of its spacecrafts.
Again, I was a kid playing and hunting in the fields of Brikama and Bafuloto when one day, I decided to go closer to the huge machinery the U.S installed in Bafuloto, not knowing what they were. But they were paying the Alkalo of Bafuloto only $2000 per annum for such a global project. Please go to Bafuloto today and see if that $2000 has done any good for the village.
Ousainou Darboe, Halifa Sallah, Sidia Jatta, etc., there was a reason the British Empire had to fight tooth and nail to keep Gambia. According to a U.S document I have, Gambia and Senegal’s ports alone can cater to the needs of the entire subregion. And Senegal has been fighting Gambia to dominate the re-export trade since the days of Sir Dawda.
Ousainou Darboe, Halifa Sallah, Sidia Jatta, etc., that Senegal being puppeteered from Paris wants you to be divided for a puppet-in-chief like Adama Barrow to remain in power—not for Gambians, but special interests from afar! The first-past-post is something Barrow and his masters will vehemently fight for!
Ousainou Darboe, Halifa Sallah, Sidia Jatta, etc., a seriously divided opposition will help Barrow a lot. This is why they paid huge sums of money to lobby those short-sighted NAMs. The French and their slaves in Dakar, by now understand Gambian politics a lot! After all, they have our State House on their digits!
They know it would be very difficult to reconcile Halifa and Ousainou Darboe! They know identity politics is prototypical in The Gambia. But my fathers (Ousainou Darboe, Halifa Sallah, Sidia Jatta, etc.,), I have interviewed all of you as a kid journalist in The Gambia.
It shouldn’t be me that espies these from the horizon. Please team up and reclaim Gambia’s sovereignty and natural independence! Ousainou Darboe, if you really understand that Barrow has become a prodigal son this surprisingly bellicose, please the best way to fight him isn’t being an obstacle to any united front against him.
Halifa, this is an exhortation from a son that met and interviewed you almost twenty years ago. I have written about all of you. Our country is dying! But you can all forget your individual egos and rescue it. Please think of the poverty we have. Please think of our women suffering in markets under harsh conditions to sell okra to live.
Please think of the lack of basic supplies in our hospitals while Adama Barrow sends his kids to America for everything. Please think of our sisters dying in labor while this government purchases fleets of vehicles for the “Barrow Youth Movement.”
Please think of how many Gambians are dying young in unbearable poverty from diseases the cure of which is to furnish our hospitals with the basic supplies. Please think of the article we published from a whistle blower in the Ministry of Health about the embezzlement of the Covid funds while Gambians are suffering!
Please think of our muddy streets, murky and unkempt for human habitation. Please think of how many poor families lose their poor houses to the rains each year! Please forget your differences and team up against a greedy sellout like Barrow! Gambians are dying! But Gambia itself is dying with them!