Banjul,The Gambia Journal       

Over this weekend two jarringly contradictory tendencies are to manifest themselves in the form of a congress of the Supreme Islamic Council, SIC. The council has not have any such congress for decades and did not think of holding one until about a month ago when it invited President Jammeh to officially opened its new D6 million center funded by the Emir of Qatar. The occasion was to be part of the celebrations of the 14^th anniversary of the coup that brought Mr. Jammeh to power. But to the chagrin of the erratic Gambian leader, construction of the center was not fully complete. There were still some finishing jobs left. Members of the council might have hoped that, showing the building to the Gambian leader would prompt him into donating supplementary funds for completing what was left of the finishing work of the building. But President Jammeh was enraged. His suspicion was that council members had mismanaged the funds and that the whole ceremony was a bait to get more funds from him. President Jammeh denounced the council members as corrupt and self-seeking  and divided over issues that have nothing to do with Islam. He went on further say that the present council members have been in control for too long and he gave them a week’s ultimatum to reconstitute “democratically.”  The call for democracy and regular elections in the council is naturally laudable, but the council is a non-governmental organization supposedly operating in a secular state. It should be able to operate without government interference, much less with the secular president giving ultimatums, calling for re-election and even proposing candidates. So in the case of the SIC congress, democracy and totalitarianism. Sure, this is unthinkable for say the Christian Council. This institution is able to hold on to its apolitical status and independence because its leadership is composed of men who genuinely practice what they preach, the principles of Christianity. SIC, under the leadership of the now disgraced Alhagy Banding Drammeh degenerated into the practice of cultivating, nurturing and even worshiping  the client-patron relations with President Jammeh that soon changed the organization into nothing but his lap-dog. SIC has never questioned government policies. Even at the time of the repeatedly bungled annual Hajj operations when pilgrims spent night in airports, or even failed to perform due to the profiteering motives of President Jammeh and his cronies, there was never a word of concern from the SIC leadership. In the run-up to the last presidential election in September 2006, the dethroned SIC president went on a nation-wide vote-buying exercise to give the deals his spiritual blessing, we have learnt from reliable sources. Acting as a Jammeh mouth-piece recently, SIC issued an official statement condemning the spread of Shiite teachings in the country. There is no such thing in The Gambia and the tiny group of Lebanese businessmen who were born into the sect and who were of that conviction before coming and the only community of that faith in the country. One of them, Mr. Muhammad Bazzi, is now one of the biggest and most influential businessmen in the country with controlling shares in electricity production, telecoms, import and export is also a business associate of President Jammeh’s. And he might be the cause of the weird anti-Shiite rhetoric that some Gambian Muslim leaders have been uttering. Probably in a game of raising his stakes in the not-so-clean business partnerships with Mr. Bazzi, President Jammeh instigated the sectarian rhetoric. Days after the presidential ultimatum, SIC hurriedly issued what seems like a fatwa to Islamic schools and institutions and media houses forbidding the teaching of Shiite doctrines in the country. In fact  the SIC has no legal or constitutional right or mandate to make such pronouncements. But in hurry to please President Jammeh, without bordering to see if there was in deed any such practice going on in the country, Alhagy Banding and his men issued the fatwa.  But this could not save them, a press release from the Department of State for Religious Affairs earlier this month, announced a date and place for the congress, also stating that the release supersedes any prior publication SIC might have earlier done. At first Banding could not figure out what was happening. Asked if he was planning on bidding for reelection, he told reporters he was not yet sure. It was a day or two later that he figured out that President Jammeh does not want him in the new committee.  

 It looks like the man Jammeh wants to replace Alhagy Babanding Drammeh with is a maverick preacher-man Alhaji Ba-Kawsu Fofana. He is a fire-eating and very conservative man who preaches against the use of condom and thinks women should not be allowed to appear on television. He thinks girls, if they ever go to school, ought to be separated from boys. He is against drumming, dancing and disco and loathes women in Western style dressing, from what he has said in audio cassettes that circulate in the country one copy of which The Gambia Journal has. Many listen to his cassettes more for fun and entertainment than out of any religious interest. Ba-Kawsu is also very sectarian man and did not hide his low regard for Jola fetishism. In fact it was his anti-Jola rhetoric in one of his public sermons that he was picked up by the NIA. It was at the time of his arrest that President Jammeh was said to have ordered that Ba-Kawsu be brought to him. The two men conferred and the preacher man was released. Neither men have yet divulged what transpired between them. It might have been the dialogue of the dumb, but no one can tell. 

  Whatever, Ba-Kawsu Fofana, has confirmed that he intends to stand as candidate or the presidency of the country’s supreme Islamic body. He told pressmen that he was called upon to do so by the “Muslims elders of the country.”

 “They have assured me of their support to be at the helm of affairs of the country’s supreme Islamic body in complementing the Gambian leader’s efforts in giving a new look to the day-to-day administration and as well boost the moral of SIC. I recently returned from a nationwide tour and I was impressed with the rousing welcome I received with my delegation,” he was reported to have said.

Asked what would be his priority if elected president, Alhaji Ba-Kawsu Fofana said “to strengthen the cordial relation between the government and the SIC. I will also go all out to uphold and defend the principles of the Muslim Ummah come rain or shine. Also , I will at all cost cherish a wonderful relationship between Muslims and Christians in The Gambia”.

Ba-Kawsu added that President Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh is supportive of the Muslim Ummah and this according to Ba-Kawsu earned the Gambian leader the title Amir Almuminina. “Free education for Islamic scholars from primary to secondary level and a university for Islamic scholars will be the order of the day if I am elected president. From the reaction of the people during my tour, I am already an elected president,” he declared. 

In fact the ability to go on such a tour in spite of the impromptu nature of Sunday’s congress suggests that there are some organized and powerful forces behind the taleban-type preacher-man. It looks like Sunday’s election will be just a walk-over to the SIC presidency for Ba-Kawsu and most likely a setback for Islam, our secular dispensation and for religious freedom in the country. Because of the temperament of the two odd characters, a Jammeh-Ba-Kawsu partnership is unlikely to last that long. But before a possibly dramatic ending comes a coalition of the two mercurial characters appears more like a frightening omen for this country.