Sometimes you might think you really have it bad as a Nigerian, but when you look out of your window to fellow African countries you can’t but thank God that we at the minimum enjoy the benefit of the leadership of a benevolent dictator clad in the garbs of constitutional democracy no mater how inept, corrupt or intolerant. On Sunday night, I was opportuned to stumble upon the comments of newly “re-elected” Gambian leader, 41 years old maximum ruler Yahya Jammeh, a man that have ruled his country with an iron fist for the past twelve years since seizing power in 1994 in a military coup and transforming himself to a civilian dictatorship in a rigged 1996 polls that saw international aid cut extensively to this tiny impoverished nation with a population size less than the number of area boys in Lagos.
In any case, after “winning” the last election over the previous weekend, Jammeh addressed a thundering conference in which amongst other things he said and I quote: “Let me tell you one thing. The whole world can go to hell. If I want to ban any newspaper, I will, with good reason,” he further went on to say, “This is Africa and this is the Gambia, a country where we have very strong African moral values. … If you write Yahya is a thief, you should be ready to prove it in a court of law. If that constitutes lack of press freedom, then I don’t care.” As usual this has been a very good cover ploy for African dictators that seek to oppress their own people, stealing from us for centuries and settling in their decadent opulence while playing the rubbish race card of “This is Africa” as if we are some backward primitive age humans who only understand force and who do not deserve to be governed by men willing to answer to civilized democracy and the wish of the people.
Indeed, Jammeh represent a group of fast disappearing African rulers that I posit will rather be crushed than surrender to the fast moving whirlwind of popular democracy. He has been said to have made known his intention to rule Gambia for the next thirty years. To that I say dream on dictator. Somewhere in the desert some adept snipers are working very hard to take you out very soon, while you enjoy your own ultra masturbatory preoccupation with megalomaniac invincibility. For long, the people of Africa like Gambians have been taken in by these half baked military men that have longed to be sole administrator over the affairs of their fellow men. Most of them come from a background of hate, poverty and disapproval. Most of them like IBB, Abacha, Idi Amin, Mobutu, Bokasa, Banda and indeed Jammeh suffer from serious psychological and psychiatric problems turning them into sadistic dictators that get power drunk and derive maximum pleasure from the suffering of their fellow citizens.
How else can you explain it when in the same press conference Jammeh invoked the twin camouflage of the unbridled use of the name of God and neo-colonization to defend against possible international intervention? Hear him rant when he said, “My World Bank has always been the almighty Allah and he will always remain my World Bank. I don’t look up to anybody but the almighty Allah to develop this country. The mere fact that we are poor does not mean that we have lost our sovereignty. The mere fact that we are poor does not mean that we can become somebody’s stooge or poodle.” He sure needs his head examined I must say. Which Allah or World Bank can bear the suffering he has sentenced the poor people of Gambia that he so seeks to rule in the past year to?What concrete achievement can he point to? How many bridges, roads and schools has he built? How many industries have sprouted in the locust years he has dominated the political landscape of this nearly landlocked country that he bestrides like an endemic pestilence? In a country with so much widespread illiteracy that people had to use marbles to vote instead of ballot papers, we have a ranting fool that wants us to believe he is some second god that hears directly from Allah- idiotic! Some might call you colossus Jammeh, but to me you are nothing but a pest.
Listening up until this point, he just sounded like another braggadocio. More like an Obasanjo that has a diarrhea of the mouth than an Idi-Amin. But I changed my mind when he said the following, “I don’t believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest of your life. Then maybe at some point we say, oh, he is too old to be fed by the state, we release him and let him become destitute, then everybody will learn a lesson from him.” Oh my God! Africa is in deep shit, deep trouble if this kind of people attend the so called African Union. Where is our spines oh African men, where are we? While Jammeh and his brigands rape your women and plunder your land, where are the real men in Gambia? Jammeh and his likes do not deserve the common decency of living among men; he should either be in a psychiatric ward or some kind of prison with these kinds of statements in a supposedly meritorious “post-election” press conference.
It is useful to mention at this point that I have drawn from the words of this moronic African dictator to show my fellow Africans and indeed Nigerians that the battle of the black race has just begun. We are our own worst enemies. There is no need to sugar coat reality- it is the likes of Jammeh that make you and I look bad to the rest of civilized world. This kind of barbarity that has been persistently tolerated in our continent dehumanizes every one of us. Often I wonder if these rulers and dictators can achieve their feat without some minimum level of civilian support. I doubt it. For one Jammeh has a body guard, is this body guard not thinking of his country, his motherland, his humanity or future generations yet unborn? Is he satisfied just being fed fat by this rabid dictator while his land is raped, people humiliated and subjugated. Time will tell if Jammeh’s body guard is reading this. Time will tell.
To see the Full Details of Jammeh’s Rant – Click Here
4 comments
My dear brother Michael Oluwagbemi II
It is good to read articles of democrats like you, and many other contributors of this site. I totally agreed with you, as regards the military background of Mr Yahya Jammeh, and the way and manner he pushed his way through to the state house.
However, we should have facts of reality on the ground, before we condemed leaders, nomatter what their background was, before coming to power. I am of the opining, that we need to look at the performance of his predecessor. Though he was a democrat. The 1970 constitution of the Gambia, which divided the government into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches, was suspended after the 1994 military coup. As part of the transition process, the armed forces provisional ruling council established the constitution review commission (CRC) through decree in March 1995. In accordance with the timetable for the transition to a democratically elected government, the commission drafted a new constitution for The Gambia which was approved by referendum in August 1996.
The constitution provides for a strong presidential government, a unicameral legislature, an independent judiciary, and the protection of human rights. Before the coup d'état in July 1994, The Gambia was one of the oldest existing multi-party democracies in the whole of Africa. It had conducted freely contested elections every 5 years since independence.
After the military coup, politicians from deposed President Jawara's People's Progressive Party (PPP) and other senior government officials were banned from participating in politics until July 2001.The People's Progressive Party (PPP), headed by former president Jawara, had dominated Gambian politics for nearly 30 years. The last elections under the PPP regime were held in April 1992.
Following the coup, a presidential election took place in September 1996, in which retired Col. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh won 56% of the vote. The legislative elections held in January 1997 were dominated by the alliance for patriotic reorientation and construction, which captured 33 out of 45 seats. In July 2001, the ban on Jawara-era political parties and politicians was lifted. Four registered opposition parties participated in the 18 October 2001, presidential election, which the incumbent, President Yahya Jammeh, won with almost 53% of the votes. The alliance for patriotic reorientation and construction maintained its strong majority in the National Assembly in legislative elections held in January 2002; particularly after the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) boycotted the legislative elections.
In 2005 the political scenario was changed, as five opposition parties united under the umbrella of the National Alliance for Democracy and Development. NADD thus represented virtually all political opposition forces in the country. Following the registration of NADD the High Court ruled that dual party membership was unconstitutional, and as NADD had been registered as a political party all four opposition MPs were dismissed from the National Assembly. By-elections were held on September 29, in which NADD retained three of the four seats. On November 15 the same year, three high-ranking NADD leaders (including the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Halifa Sallah) were arrested on the grounds of subversion.
On the 21st and22 March 2006, amid tensions preceding the 2006 presidential elections, an alleged planned military coup was uncovered. President Yahya Jammeh was forced to return from a trip to Mauritania, many suspected army officials were arrested, and prominent army officials, including the army chief of staff, fled the country. I was opportune to visit the Gambia for one week during the A.U Summit, and had the possibility to talk to people, and many are of the opinion that President Yahya Jammeh has done more for the Gambia since 1994, than what the PPP did for thirty years. I also realized that the Gambia is one of the unconditional allies of Nigeria. The relationship between Gambia and Nigeria is equal like the relationship between the Federal government, and states in Nigeria. Gambia is a country where some of its prominent Ministers are Nigerians, and she receives a yearly budgetary allocation in both crude and cash from the federal republic of Nigeria.
Many Nigerians are working in prominent positions in the Gambian heath, judicial, administrative, and truism, sector of the Yahya Jammeh administrations, though he was a Military personal, that become democrat, and possible one of the few African leader that have love of its people, and working towards improving the day to day lives. In my one week stay in Gambia, I did not witness the eye sow in other countries, where citizens sleep on the street, nor witness that people cant have three squire meals a day.
When people like this continue to sit at the helm of affairs of our african continent,we will continue to have darkness,pains,deprivity and other socio-economic woes in this continent,and the rest continent will always treat us with ignominy.All over the continent ,these uncircumcised rulers litter every country.Ever our dear country,Nigeria,is not exempted from this backward situation.In as far as there are some people that will always encourage them,we will always remain in this obnoxious melee.We must take our destiny in our own hands
Michael: You are one of the few front-page commentators on this website that I can agree with generally. I agree with you because you make sense. I agree with you because you're not wrapped up in that overused and abused blanket called "RACISM" in justifying the failure and shortsightedness of our Black African looters.
Having read that piece, I think it will be accurate for me to conclude that you are aware of the fact that the success of idiotic bums like Jammeh is directly proportional to the tacit support of the populace. To corroborate that point, just read some of the opinions expressed by some "black African" writers about the decision of another African dictator: Mugabe, in connection with his "land redistribution" garbage!
It seems to me as if many black Africans, in the name of dissociating themselves from "white people", would support any black African looter who "takes on" white people on any issue, even if it is foreseable that such "taking on" will lead to the social torture of the masses, and more millions of dollars in the Swiss Bank accounts of the black looter!
bKeep up the good work; sir!/b
the era of this is gone