Shortly after, our sources brought to our attention that New York Times had carried our story through two of its correspondents. Days after our publication, Whats-on-Gambia had no choice but to secondary-carry our same news because it was a hot cake.

Only a depthless Gambian would brag about name or number today when the country has been sinking since Barrow took over. We have been the canary in the coal mine when Whats-on-Gambia was busy writing cheap gossip, sometimes about sex—things too shallow, parochial, and insignificant to our national cry.

Our sources called to complain. We know Alieu Khan more than most Gambians. We’ve been extremely proud of the brother. In fact, the last time we spoke was in October 2023 when we received intelligence that the Barrow administration had him on its radar.

We placated our sources by assuring them that it’s possible lots of stories go to What’s-on-Gambia without Alieu’s knowledge just like we calmed down one of Barrow’s cabinet ministers when he/she complained to us about Alieu.

Please that minister never gave us any tips about the gov’t (before anybody rushes to conclusions). When we called Alieu last month or so, he wasn’t online. We called his sister who also tried calling him. But she said Alieu said he was busy. We told the sister to convey the message to him due to family ties.

Alieu never called back. But Whats-on-Gambia won’t leave our stories alone. Since Alieu has forgotten family ties, we will fight this battle in the open insha Allaah and let’s see who blinks first. We never established forGambia News for money or vainglory.

When Adama Barrow started destroying our country through Macky Sall in 2017, we fulfilled our promise to late Pa Nderry Mbaye who begged us to help him out at Freedom Newspaper since its inception around 2005.

But no single Gambian journalist became a gad-fly to Adama Barrow before the founder of this site simply because they didn’t consider it a priority. Gambia now destroyed with our national assets such as GPA, Gamtel, the Bridge, etc., gone amid dizzying heights of corruption, everybody is now the Socratic gad-fly they never were.

But fetid jealousy wouldn’t let them credit us whenever they use our articles in stale publications. They think mentioning us will drive more traffic to our site which in their evil hearts is an abomination. We flinch from fame.

Ask those we worked with before when this editor quit a rare skill others covetted. Today, not just the NY Times, but on 2 TV, Senegal’s veteran journalist Ahmed Aidara did a TV show on our story, reading our article line by line on camera giving credit!

Now Whats-On-Gambia, how about putting this in your pipe and smoking it? Aidara is showing how the job is done professionally. Please watch the video for yourselves and see him read our article in French and translating it into Wollof.

You can see and hear him say this was written by forGambia News while slightly mispronouncing our name. But he spent a significant amount of time reading our story and adding that we have not even revealed all of what we know which is correct.

Dear What’On-Gambia, certainly, you’ve been writing about trivia and stupid subjects. It’s indeed a weakness to brag. But despite your vaunt of ego and perceived clout and ‘billions’ of followers, did any of your stories ever make it to New York Times or even next-door neighbor Senegalese press? Please work smarter!

 We leave you with this King Duncan extolling of Macbeth as he conferred on him Thane of Cawdor title: “What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won!” What you have lost, noble Ahmed Aidara hath won!

Wollaahi we didn’t establish this medium to be celebrated. Nor are we getting any money from it. Those close to us know we seldom practice journalism anymore due to our primary professional engagement. We only write when we have time. Please push us further so we can ask why somebody curiously left a particular middle school he was teaching at in The Gambia. Please bring it on and we will haply wait for you at the court gates. Cheerio!

“Beware of the Ides of” Charles Jow. We don’t want to say much!