By Ebrima Papa Colley (Gambiano)
The main argument pushed by Fabakary Tombong Jatta and his pariah group has been hinged on what Gambians have now seen only as a pretext to sell APRC to Adama Barrow, not because Barrow has transformed Gambia into a modern nation, helped citizens out of poverty with better education, access to healthcare, a fluent economy, or anything all nations strive for. “We are fighting for Jammeh and his return,” has been their mantra.
But it is now explicit that this blank rhetoric of “fighting for Jammeh” is nothing but a bowel-irritable lie. That Jammeh is telling Fabakary and his team that he doesn’t need them. And that has laid the skeleton too bare! They still refused to stop “fighting for Jammeh,” otherwise his APRC, his pictures, etc., won’t be seen with them anymore!
No, this isn’t about fighting for Jammeh. It’s about fighting for individual pockets with Barrow as the chief patron and Fabakary the chief patriarch of a group of greedy con artists using Jammeh’s name as a stock-in-trade.
The latest Colosseum pawn to gladiators has become someone this editor was very close to at some point. This editor called FJC and texted her months ago to warn her. She had no idea we were privy to very critical information and schematic political chessboards. Alas, Fatoumata (or mum, as I fondly called her) told me Balla was sick and they were at a hospital. She promised to call back as soon as she got home. I gave my well wishes and carried on.
And that took days because I gave her all the space and time. I called and texted again. No answer, this time! All I wanted to do was warn her about something I knew just like I called Lang Tombong Tamba months ago and warned him. Some people just don’t respond to reason enough. I had a feeling they might have poisoned FJC’s mind that Papa Colley is a virulent Barrow and Macky Sall enemy!
Around the year 2000, the Daily Observer Company asked staff to pick any cellphone of choice because the company would deduct it from our salaries. People rushed. I refused. And cellphones were a new thing even in the United States then.
Later, it was Fatoumata Jahumpa Ceesay that told me she would get me a cellphone from overseas. She told me the President and her were coming back to Gambia via Monarch airways; so watch out for Monarch. I kept looking at the skies and boom, Monarch landed.
The same day Monarch was landing, I was at the house of Adama Barrow’s current adviser, Dembo Byforce for a naming ceremony I was invited to. Wollaahi Gamnbia is too small and intertwined for us to fight.
I left the house of Dembo Byforce too abruptly because Monarch had landed earlier when I was in a car travelling from Brikama and I knew Fatoumata wouldn’t lie to me. I had opened the brand new box of a very high-end phone brand then and plugged it to charge before I left for Dembo Byforce’s house. I left the naming ceremony to ravish my new gift (something I later knew in journalism school in the States as a payola or pagoda) and that it’s unethical.
When I heard Fatoumata insulting Jammeh, I was shocked! When I was sketching those Jammeh cartoons, Jammeh would cut them out from the papers and tease FJC. This same FJC would tell the president, “There! that’s Ebrima Papa Colley,” at presidential functions! I write this with a heavy heart. And I don’t want to write it with Faulkner, but simple plain English.
Dear FJC, please listen to the kid you used to call “son.” The last time we spoke long on the phone was when I first arrived in the States. It has been my dream to gift you with a surprise just like you gifted me with one earlier. You took me to your Kanifing residence and I met your ex-husband several times as I was like your own son. But our country, its people and sovereignty have suffered too much under Barrow for you to campaign for him:
- Our young women dying in labor continuously in the poorest hospitals while our gov’t spends our money on NPP fleet of cars, trucks, buses, or buying people.
- Lack of gloves, oxygen, blood, and other basic supplies in our hospitals;
Dr. Samateh’s D115,000.00 monthly allowance while we lack oxygen in our poor hospitals.
- Every single day or week, a poor Gambian mother bleeds to death or perishes in labor-related complications with our useless health minister denying the truth in his face while pictures and graphic data are posted continuously.
- Our GNA soldiers hungry without lunch, sometimes until 7pm while the commander-in-chief Adama Barrow never visited a single military barrack hosting our men and women in uniform. But he handed over their birthright and function to a Senegalese security apparatus showing the whole world that he doesn’t even want Gambian military around him; he only wants Gambians’ votes!
- Adama Barrow’s D150,000.00 a day ‘Ndawal’ or fish money.
- Fisheries arson to burry evidence, yet still nothing.
- Henry Gomez and the diplomatic passport deals.
- NPP openly inviting foreigners to cross into our indigenous politics, even threatening our immigration authorities if they refuse to open the borders; again, where was the National Assembly in calling a special session, especially when the NPP already showed videos of foreigners who already crossed our borders to boost Barrow’s Foni Sintet rally?
- Remember the pressure group (Operation No illegal Voting or Registration of Foreigners) advocating for fraud-free election, but IEC’s Momar Njai threatening them which clearly speaks volumes; where is Momar Njai as NPP continues to bring foreigners to campaign for them in our country, including Macy Sall’s own political party?
- Senegalese commercial drivers hitting our Gambian traffic police with vehicles.
- Senegalese intruders chasing and burning Gambian trucks, sometimes crossing into our borders, shooting and arresting our nationals.
- Senegalese diplomat raping a Gambian under-aged girl on Gambian soil, but smuggled back to Senegal without trial while Gambians are chased across our borders by the same Senegalese armed men.
- Senegalese army crossing into our borders, provoking our GNA multiple times.
- Senegalese vessels depleting our fish in Gambian waters, a phenomenon pushing local prices to sky-rocketing levels in our Gambian markets!
- The same Senegalese authorities detaining an underaged Gambian minor for a month for allegedly fishing in Senegalese waters.
- Barrow allocating more money to his State House expenses than our country’s entire agriculture budget; fishing is part of agriculture and vessels could have been bought for Gambian youths to create employment.
- Ba Tambadou giving diplomatic passport to family—abuse of office and no special session or hearing by the National Assembly.
- Janneh Commssion White paper has Mamburreh Njie and others, but only Sabally can be banned and punished.
- Abubacarr Jawara’s gun smuggling and importation into poor Gambia; instead of putting him in jail, our police give him an award! But little boys are sent to jail for smoking a join!
- Henry Gomez diplomatic passport scandal; tons of cocaine seized, still nothing!
- Extreme hardship on Gambians, continuous sky-rocketing prices of consumer goods, lack of public security as Gambians die in streets, homes, forests, etc., Barrow bought his son a house in Seattle and removed him from the lack of security most Gambians have to deal with today.
- Barrow publicly and on camera telling the world how he put amulets under heads of corpses; bodies buried by families and communities as loved ones only for this sorcerer to desecrate those graves without any mercy or remorse? And earlier, he said he had sacrificed his own son?
And Fatoumata Jahumpa Ceesay, Rambo Jatta, Fabakary Tombong Jatta, Dodou Jah, and your lot want Gambians to rally behind Adama Barrow, the destroyer of Gambia?