About 30 agents of the National Intelligence Agency in Banjul are gearing up for graduation after a series of undercover trainings that lasted for two months. “We’re told to keep this secret even from our families because our training centered on the much-talked about December protest”, very strategic sources within the spy agency informed forGambia Thursday.

The funds for this training were said to be secured from the Gulf kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Their full usage and auditing is billed to be unaccounted for in a regime hellbent on fund diversion of dizzying heights. Our sources say the money is in millions of dollars.

Months ago, the founder of forGambia, in a radio show touched on the OIC summit crafted for The Gambia. Most Gambians scarcely understand the politics of this so-called Islamic conference, a hegemony which has very little to do with Islam.

The Saudis, for decades have had a pig-headed obsession with political control over other Muslim nations in a fierce competition and, sometimes, internecine rivalry with Iran. Any Muslim nation somewhat gelling well with the Persians is a threat, at least in the Saudi vista, a reason enough to inveterately bomb Yemen or threaten Qatar, a former sidekick.

In Africa, the Saudis have been baking the same dough of maintaining a religious and political sway through breadcrumb-checkbook symbiosis as they have been pursuing in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan before Imran Khan.

The global attention to Africa has intensified in 2019 than ever before since the first scramble and its subsequent Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885. The super powers want Africa’s resources and land more than Africans themselves ever covet those endowments.

The Japan-Africa summit is too recent for a Russia-Africa conference which is on-going as we prepare this piece. Years ago, it was Bush and Obama’s AFRICOM that summoned all heads-of-states of the African continent. For what? Very few Africans question!

While such maneuvers proceed, and often very surreptitiously, the Chinese  adopt a much subtler methodology for strategic Chinese interests in the resource-rich continent of selfish and unpatriotic leaders. But the Saudi-Iran joust has been on a totally different fresco, at least post 1979.

Insiders told forGambia, “There’s high competition here between the Saudis and the Iranians and this is not good for an intelligence outfit. Because our intelligence is being compromised for monetary gains.” The Saudis, for the record also sponsored and built a mosque in the heart of Gambia’s intelligence agency in Banjul and the agency’s training center in Banjulinding.

It will be very wise of African leaders to avoid getting caught in the Saudi-Iran crossfire as it will in the U.S-Russia or China’s. But this takes intellect and acumen. Our quest, in the Gambian dichotomy should be to map out our most urgent priorities in the best fiscal geometry through dependable leadership.

President Adama Barrow recently inaugurated the new spy training center but fell short of mentioning its cost. If all went as planned, the undercover agents and products of the Saudi money were  set to complete training on Friday which is now deferred till further notices.

Meanwhile, the director of the agency Ousman Sowe is said to be out of the country for almost a month. This is another developing story in our radar. We will keep you posted if need be.

Gambiano821@gmail.com