Is This A Senseless Wave of Purge or What?

The mercurial Gambian leader President Yahya Jammeh has said that he wishes the best for the country in everything, from agriculture to zoology, and he believes that his government is capable of achieving whatever it aims at but all working with him have to have that wish and belief. There is just not space enough for anyone who waivers on either this goal or the commitment for its attainment. This is why there has been such a record in the attrition rate of members of both his cabinet and his government. Mr. Jammeh admits this readily and even appears to take pride in dismissing people. There are one million and six hundred thousand Gambians in reserve for any position in his cabinet and government, so why should people worry about the frequent changes of hands in his cabinet or government? People often misunderstand him on this matter and think he loves sacking people from positions, he has often claimed. But if one takes the trouble of looking closely at his record, it is true that many have come in and out of his cabinet but there are only a “genuine” few who have remained with him for rather long. Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy is one such person who has been with him for twelve years now. But apart from the witty but easy-going former civil servant and head of the Women’s Bureau, no one has been even near her length of stay in Jammeh’s quickly revolving-door policy of abrupt hiring and firing of members of his cabinet and government administration.   A television shot currently played by the GRTS television about a dozen times daily has President Jammeh saying in a heavy emotional tone: I want the best for The Gambia and her people, anyone who does not share this vision should not be part of my government.

Though he hardly gives reasons for dismissing ministers from his cabinet, President Yahya Jammeh often wants the general public to believe that it is because the sacked ministers and civil servants have failed to “deliver.” It is mostly about projects funded by donor agents that are left lying around like a rejected meal. In the usually slow pace that goes with the attitude of the Gambian civil service, projects are almost always behind schedule.  But this cannot always be put on the shoulders of secretaries of state departments, or ministers as they are now called again. The civil service is badly in need of reform, even Jammeh himself has publicly admitted this several times. Members are poorly paid, poorly motivated and feel there is little meritocracy and too much nepotism, favoritism and corruption. Ministers and even presidents come and go, but the civil service, its work discipline and attitude to official responsibility die hard. In fact years of commandeering from the Executive has left the system of government administration weak, without clear directions and almost dysfunctional. Permanently frightened by the prospect of being next on-line for the frequent and inevitable firings, many civil servants have voluntarily resigned, gone to the private sector or out of the country, or driven to the state of reckless cynicism.

Behind this round of shake-ups and firings, appear to be something President Jammeh said on television at the conclusion of the Dialogue-With-The-People tour last month. Apparently the Indian government had approved a grant to help construct a new National Assembly building complex in line with Jammeh’s penchant for white-elephant projects, grand edifices and monuments. Money for it had been transferred many months ago but work on the construction is still to take off. Jammeh decried the delay, attributing it to laxity, and the prospects of the Indians changing their mind and returning the money. As the Secretary of State for National Assembly Affairs, Mr. Yankuba Touray was partly responsible, together with paddy and Speaker Fatoumata Jahumpa Ceesay and Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs, Musa Bala Gibril Gaye. All three are the prominent victims of the most recent wave of sackings. None of the three have yet been replaced, and it is likeliest that the choice of replacements do not matter; the institutions will continue displaying their inadequacies, incompetence and will continue causing stumbling blocks for project implementation.

Institutions, especially moribund state institutions of the post-colonial African type often need purges that will rid the system of old baggage and open the way for new blood, but, under normal circumstances and proper leadership, most can do with the natural process of retirement and promotion. Institutions need vigor but they also need experience, change is their rule but continuity is the order under which they thrive. Jammeh says Gambians should not worry about the  frequency of the dismissals because of the availability of  abundant number of Gambians to choose from, but just now he has his hand full with about half a dozen ministerial portfolios, including Agriculture, Information and Communications, Religious Affairs, Petroleum, and now even Fisheries, Water Resources and National Assembly Affairs. If there are ample numbers of qualified Gambians around, what is Mr. Jammeh waiting for to fill these positions? Give us a break Mr. President.

In fact not one sensible person will accept appointment to such position from Mr. Jammeh. Working in his cabinet is a pain in the neck, many observers say. The man has no respect for the rules and regulations of meetings, former cabinet members told The Gambia Journal. “It is like going back to infant school when we gather every week for the sterile cabinet meetings, “, one former member said.  Cabinet members spend a whole day for a meeting that most of the time is postponed. Only that one gets to know this after having set the day aside, woke up early in the morning and drove at times all the way to Kanilai. “We will be sitting from 8 AM to quarter to four,” one former cabinet member told the Journal under condition of anonymity, “before a young rude and arrogant-looking soldier walks in to tell us we can disperse as the meeting has been postponed and we were to expect no apologies or explanation. Most of us thought it was because he was still in bed, I don’t know.” In fact secretly, many cabinet members would rather President Jammeh did not appear at all. On the occasions that he did, he kept everyone of them on their toes and in a state of near nervous breakdown. “The point is President Jammeh knows this and enjoys it, “he added. “ Once we came for the weekly meetings all the way to Kanilai and were all assembled, waiting for the President from 8.00 to 11.00 am out in the sun. One of the security details helped transferred us to a shaded area beneath a huge tree. By 2 pm I was taking ablution on a water tap behind a container, I heard the president scolding a man for transferring us to wait in the shade without first getting his permission, “a former cabinet minister in the Jammeh regime disclosed. Most members of cabinet dread the coming of the weekly meetings as school boys dread Monday mornings.

The meetings are not about the exchange of views or opinions. No one who comes near the erratic politician would entertain any illusions of democracy or forum of exchange of views by equals in the weekly cabinet meetings. President Jammeh does all the talking and other members take the floor only when asked specific questions on issues under their purview. “But most of the time is very, very angry with everyone. The longer you are in cabinet, the more one is able to detect his mood from the footsteps on the way into the cabinet room and adjust accordingly. But he can be humorous sometimes and sends the whole cabinet bursting with laughter. But all such occasions are humor at the expense of the other person.”  It is mostly under such conditions that Jammeh’s ministers come face to face with him and it is also from such episodes that he forms his opinion about the various individuals behind the positions.  Given his suspicious nature, former members say President Jammeh always treat them with suspicion if not outright disdain. “He is always shouting at us, and most of the time abusive about everything whether it has to do with vehicles, overseas traveling, projects, petty things like relations between a driver and a janitor at the department, fuel coupons, etc, etc. He is like that with everybody all the time but when you are targeted, he shouts at you particularly hard and rough.” He added that “sixty percent” of the sackings come this way, without neither Jammeh nor victim really clear on the reason. “Then there are the twenty percent sacked because people, party people or members of the Foni Kabudu, reporting negatively on them to President Jammeh. You see the illiterates hanging around him in Kanilai, hunting, drinking attaya or roasting meat. You see them as innocent ignorant people, but they are the most dangerous ones; they are the worst reporters and Jammeh trusts them more that he trusts any member of cabinet and they are the cause to many of these dismissals,” he added.

 The latest wave also took away Chief Justice Abdoul Karim Savage and got him replaced with the unpopular Nigerian national, Emanuel Agim, whose earlier missions to the Gambian judiciary have left a stained record of unprincipled boot-licking of the Executive and mercenary commitment to the execution of its orders. President Jammeh had for long openly condemned the country’s legal system over many things like what he termed as the unnecessary adjournments and long backlog of court cases. Last year, he even went further claiming there was some corruption in the system.  The mercurial Gambian leader had several times come close to publicly sacking Justice Abdul Karim Savage.  He was the first and only native Gambian legal practitioner to have occupied the Chief Justice position and he made it after the unceremonious sacking of the Ghanaian born judge, Justice Brodbery in January 2006. The sacking was then widely thought to be in connection with mass killings of Ghanaians in The Gambia six months earlier. Savage was named as his successor in February 2006 and many doubted he would last this long. Whatever his qualifications, Justice Savage is a native Gambian and realized there were limits to the excesses he could allow to go on.  It was the crackdown that came heavily on members of the bar association, the private press and the political opposition, real or imagined, in the aftermath of the alleged March 2006 coup attempt that convinced Jammeh that Savage was not a man of his liking.

 Savage kept on pleading and pleading on behalf of detainees, appearing to be too attentive to international public opinion. But then there was the former Attorney General and Secretary of State for Justice, Sheikh Tijan Hydara to take some of the heat of Jammeh’s rages against the judiciary.  That changed with Hydara’s exit. What kept Savage on the seat for this long was the fact that his replacement required judicial qualifications and few Gambian legal practitioners will stick their neck for any of Jammeh’s jobs. Just last month Justice Agim, along with Fabenle and Justice Ester Ota, called the “Dirty Three” by their detractors, were given new contracts and brought back into the country. Sources close to Mr. Savage say he had since then felt that he was on the way out.  Being part of the entourage that follows the President almost daily is part of the job of a Chief Justice so Justice Savage had the opportunity of meeting President Jammeh often enough to be able detect most changes on the face the man. Jammeh’s face is like that of an open book and can often be easily read. Former cabinet member Major Momodou Bojang is among the few to have written and circulated an article on his time in Jammeh’s cabinet. Before his final removal from office, Jammeh had not talked to him or even beckon his existence for about six months. Savage too must have experienced such treatment in the hands of the mercurial leader.

For Yankuba Touray, he is old Jammeh hand and knows the “boss” perhaps better than anyone in cabinet. Unlike the others, he had been around Mr. Jammeh since the days of “transition.” Mr. Touray must be the one to find it most difficult to accept the larger-than-life posture that Jammeh has come to assume. As an “original shareholder” of the July 22nd exploits, he feels bitterly cheated and outsmarted by Jammeh and as a star orator with nimble people-skills, he feels cheated. Jammeh needs him for electoral campaigns and for solving the endless inner-party discords, but does not appear to like to have him as part of his cabinet team. About two years ago, he grabbed the Agriculture portfolio from Touray’s hands and later scrapped his NADA project.

But perhaps the biggest loser among them all is none other than former Speaker Fatoumata Jahumpa-Ceesay. She had been with the APRC party all along from the start, with Yahya Jammeh through and through, becoming the glittering emblem of political sycophancy in the eyes of the Gambian people. But this she blended with dazzling political acumen, sharp tongue and aggressive articulation. Remember she was the first to take note of the organizational failures of the NADD political opposition three years ago.  A year later, as Speaker of the rubber-stamp National Assembly; she rolled through the ratification of a treaty with Venezuela with the only available text in the assembly written in the Spanish language.  Both Touray and Jahumpa were actually great pillars of Jammeh’s political fortunes, influential figures of the APRC party and not easily replaceable.

Musa Bala Gaye is another matter altogether. Musa’s wife, of Moroccan extraction is believed to be like god-mother for Jammeh’s Moroccan wife and the nation’s current First Lady. It is believed it was on such a stone Mr. Gaye stepped on to reach the position of cabinet membership. But it is not known how that stone has been faring lately. But being a former banker himself, things went well between him and the Breton Woods crowd and he somehow succeeded in giving the outlandish Jammeh regime a more acceptable face within the international community. He had a technocratic air around him and succeeded in giving some air of aloofness from the mundane world of party politics. 

Whatever, Jammeh has got rid of all four of them in a wave of purges that appear to have neither discernible reason nor practical purposes. And this has set rumor mills working and speculating on who is next, Sheriff Gomez of Youths and Sports, Ismaila Sambou of Local Government and Lands, or Firdaus of Justice? The Gambia Journal is watching.