When Yahya was president, we wrote series of articles, warning him about the dangers of the institution of “Marabouts.” We published both feature and drama, almost in all the then Gambian online news outlets. Yahya’s dependence on “Marabouts” was what helped us coined, “Jammeh’s Soothsayer” series. 

Almost all African presidents rely on Marabouts. And most African elites in business, academics, work force, sports, music, etc., consult this long-standing occult with roots in Babylonian times. I wrote a jeremiad to Jammeh, explaining the little I understood about King Solomon’s prowess and how the “Shayaatheen” dived for him, built for him, or even snatched another royal’s throne for him at a whim.

I brought Quranic thesis and context. I knew Jammeh would not listen as wouldn’t most Gambians and Senegalese who continue to replace “Allaahu Akbarr” with “Sereign X Akbarr.” Prophets came to this world to strengthen this “Allaahu Akbarr.” But most Gambians and Senegalese rely on few anecdotes of successful marabout prognostications to justify prospects. 

Like many other civil servants since the Jawara era, Yahya’s reliance on marabout directives became a visceral delight while our Jammeh Soothsayers series proceeded on most Gambian online sites. Our poise was strengthened by a dichotomy of a mind and lifestyle addicted to these dark forces and another that is not.

When a human being depends on fortune telling or foresight from these African metaphysicals, the narcotic addiction would coerce him even to kill his own mother if advised. And his mind seldom rests. This is why the Qur’aan is the only reliable source of peace for the mind.

An avowed Jammeh enemy used to call me from New York almost every night to vent. And I would always insist with scriptural exhortation that when Allaah’s time comes, Jammeh and his marabouts would be vanquished. Pharoah had better marabouts!

One eschatological installment of the Jammeh Soothsayer series clearly puts, “Jammeh would fall from a direction he least espies.” This was years ago. And so it happened. And I wrapped up the literature only to see a new Jammeh in our midst! 

Shortly after the viral Saul Badjie video about forgiveness and records-straightening, we received info that he was getting ready for Gambia to reveal “things” to the TRRC that would unleash a Jammeh Pandora’s box. 

But Saul’s passport is not in his own hands as I scribble these. And the government of Equitorial Guinea didn’t know this for a very long time. 

We’re being bombarded with an avalanche of information from both  Equatorial Guniea and Gambia. A lot of them are too personal for the press. 

But why are we writing this Saul Badjie story after sitting on it all this while? To let TRRC understand that we’re usually aware of subway maneuvers. But we don’t appreciate a reality show of a history that cost many Gambians a finger or a relative’s finger if not a life.

Saul is waiting for the COVID restrictions on travel to fade and he would arrive in The Gambia, God-willing. And with that, a serialization of the real Jammeh literature far better than our Soothsayer series may unfold.

In these, are clear lessons for adamant Adama and his coreligionists. Is it rocket science to learn a sentence from too recent a history? Think! Because we never stop doing so!