The testimony of Martin Kyere, the “lone survivor” of the mysterious killing of West African migrants in the Gambia in 2005 on this Monday, March 1, 2021 has changed the whole perception portrayed by members of the Gambia security forces who had testified before him. From especially the principal NIA operatives to the police officers we watched, it is evident that they all misled us on what exactly prevailed with every one of them claiming to be the only irreproachable while their colleagues were the monsters who sabotaged their efforts to get to the bottom of the “CRIME”. All is BS to me.

By the way, who was the white-shirt guy that took their names at Barra police station that evening around 8:00 pm? Could it be Ousman Jallow who said that he was the first at the scene on the orders of Ngorr Secka, his boss? Because Ngorr Secka, as much as he tried to discredit Ousman Jallow in anyway he could, taking pointers from Mr. Kyere, had certainly lied to the TRRC about taking or collecting their names from Kairaba Station that night. They indeed both lied about their first disembarkation destination that night. Even the GPTC bus guy lied about that too. Why have these people been lying so blatantly to us? What the heck are they hiding? They were not protecting Jammeh at all whom they have been vilifying in every imaginable manner. That therefore leaves me with one logical conclusion. That they are all protecting themselves from their possible culpability in the execution of the migrants, if that is what we are ultimately driving at.

Essentially, going by Mr. Kyere’s story, their names were not only taken at the Barra Police Station which invalidated Ousman Jallow’s and Ngorr Secka’s statements but most importantly, the first six migrants who had first ventured into the shores of Barra soon after their arrival from Senegal were shot at by gunmen while those who had been watching spontaneously screamed that the strangers had been killed.

It has however been drawn to my attention that during that particular period, the Gambia Armed Forces had been on two-month-long high-alert standby on an intelligence that the government of Abdoulie Wade of Senegal had recruited the late Kukoi Samba Sanyang, some GNA ex-soldiers including the famous Sgt. Joof aka Sir Jackali and other foreign mercenaries to invade the country and topple the APRC government. Ex President Jammeh and Ex-President Wade were apparently in a mortal political battle that was edging towards an armed conflict between the two nations. President Wade was against holding the AU heads of state summit in the Gambia that was well contested and won by our government.

The Gambia had been in the past invaded by rogue mercenaries from Senegal which had shaken the very foundation of our national security and sovereignty with many more relentless elements still trying while the Senegalese government pretended not to know.

Nonetheless, we can at least agree that what happened to the migrants was nothing other than another evil cell of international human traffickers caught in their worst everyday crimes. The American Charles Taylor mentioned who was supposedly in charge of the non-existing vessel bound for Europe was the head of the smuggling ring working with their main Gambian counterpart called Lamin Tunkara. Tunkara was also eliminated in the killing.

Juxtaposing the lies of the NIA and police officers against the ostensible frank testimony of Mr. Kyere, we can of course accuse all of them of being complicit in the racket in which when the deal boomeranged in their hands they tried to clean up the mess by brutally destroying all the evidence. Looks like the migrants had paid their monies to the crooks working with Mr. Tunkara and all of them. That’s my opinion!

Another report allegedly sent from Kawsu Camara, aka Bombardier living at an undisclosed nation recently revealed that members of the NIA told them that the migrants were actually mercenaries from Dakar who had just attacked the country. As a result, they started killing them soon upon their arrival before even informing Jammeh about their actions. Bad police and intelligence officers can come up with the worst imaginable conspiracies, if they want to put people in trouble and I believe that is exactly what our rogue security personnel did in this case and ended up misleading the government entirely. To eliminate the migrants using the political and military tension between the two states at the time was a cake walk especially during a standby in anticipation of deadly force from Senegal where it had originated from before.

No government would arbitrarily slaughter innocent migrants just for the thirst of human blood as the TRRC is trying to make the world believe in this controversial case. If the migrants had known about the political and military antagonism that had existed between the two nations or were aware of the deadly events of the past that had cost so many Gambian soldiers’ lives, they wouldn’t have been lured into the death trap by the international-human traffickers and their collaborators in the heart of our security organizations. It’s a story far more complicated than we want to make out of it but which governments will understand because of its pervasiveness. The human trafficking, organ stealing and constant murdering of migrants in Libya today makes the 2005 Gambian incident a negligible crime.

The Ghana government and Dr. Muhamed Ibn Chambas, the UN and ECOWAS who at some point participated in investigating the case in which the Gambia and Ghana governments agreed to settle the case amicably must be embarrassed by the rejuvenation of the whole case again.

But time will tell.

Samsudeen Sarr

Banjul, The Gambia.