Immediately following a widely distributed clip of a Senegalese journalist’s interview, which was also published in local newspapers, the Gambia government came out swiftly to debunk claims made by the journalist in that interview.
In a sit down interview with Senegalese journalists about his upcoming piece, Mr. Pape Sané, himself a Senegalese journalist, claimed that he had interviewed exiled former Gambian dictator Yaya Jammeh and disclosed that the detailed content of his interview with Jammeh will be published in early July.
While not disclosing full details, he however gave some insights on what to expect and gave his personal assessments of The Gambia’s current political environment.
Mr. Sané spoke in Wolof during that interview, and here is a rough translation of what he said for context.
One of the journalists asked Mr. Sanneh if he raised with Jammeh the issue of there being claims made that Jammeh could be behind foiled coup attempts aimed at destabilizing the government of Adama Barrow. Mr. Sané replied:
When I asked him [Jammeh], he told me that there was a particular African leader, (I know who that leader is, I wrote about him in a piece titled ‘Protocole de Malabo’) who came to him in Equatorial Guinea and told Jammeh that they were desirous of having Barrow seek a second term and they wanted Jammeh’s endorsement through the backing of his party (APRC). According to Jammeh, what he told the emissary was that since it is a democratic process and he [Jammeh] was not in The Gambia, he could not give orders to the party, but deferred to the current party leadership to let them decide what they want to do. At the time, the party Secretary General was one Fabakary Tombong Jatta who then took the decision to ally with Adama Barrow. That Fabakary Tombong Jatta is currently the Speaker of the Gambian National Assembly. Therefore, in my own personal assessment, I may not be very analytical, but I have reached the conclusion that Yaya Jammeh and Adama Barrow are not as estranged as it is made to publicly appear. That is my own assessment, because Adama Barrow took it upon himself and went to visit Jammeh’s family and had a sit down with them in Kanilai (Jammeh’s home). Also, this past tobaski (Muslim feast of eid), Jammeh’s family returned the favor when they paid a visit to Adama Barrow at state house.
This revelation and personal assessment invited the swift response from the Gambia government through the government spokesperson Ebrima G. Sankareh. As confirmed by Sankareh, the actual publication with full details is still pending, however they felt the need to “make clarifications about key issues” the first of which of course was to dismiss claims that there may be, or may have been some form of communication between current president Adama Barrow and ousted dictator Yaya Jammeh.
Sankareh stated that “President Adama Barrow has never ever spoken to former president Jammeh directly, indirectly, or through an interlocutor, a mystery or mysteries or agents ever since he left this country. Ever since he left the Gambia, President Barrow has never spoken to him either as President-Elect or subsequently as sworn in as president, has never ever spoken to him, and has never sent anybody to him. Never written him an email or letter, anything for that matter.” (Kerr Fatou, 2024).
This raises the question, why is this revelation so vehemently opposed by The Gambia government? Why would they object to claims that former tyrant Yaya Jammeh and wannabe dictator Adama Barrow do in fact have some line of communication or at least are not as estranged as it may appear?
I mean it is all but obvious that Adama Barrow is closer to Jammeh’s former loyalists than he is with his former associates. Why would he bend over backwards to get APRC, Yaya Jammeh’s party, to his side but wants nothing to do with Jammeh himself? Everyone knows that the only competition that counts within APRC circles is who is more loyal to Yaya Jammeh. The breakaway faction of APRC No-Too Alliance from the parent party APRC is because the party’s leadership was questioned on their loyalty to Jammeh whom both camps refer to as supreme leader of the APRC.
If there is nothing wrong with being associated with APRC, why is it so upsetting to say that Barrow and Jammeh may have a back channel relationship? It is just so irrational and weird to say the least.
When Adama Barrow was ready to seal the deal to jump in bed with the APRC, he went to Yaya Jammeh’s family home in Kanilai two months before the presidential elections of that year in which no cameras were allowed in the meeting with family members. Dressed in a symbolic green outfit, representative of APRC colors, Barrow did not grant any interviews, nor did he give any statements as to the purpose of the visit.
In fact, in November 2023, to “show appreciation for the visit he accorded them in 2021, Jammeh’s family visited State House led by Foni Jarroll’s National Assembly Member Alhagie Jammeh, Barrow told the visiting Family that he “has nothing personal against him and had in fact tried to reconcile with him without success.” (The Standard, 2023)
How do you try to reconcile with someone if there are no intermediaries/mediators? May be Barrow is embarrassed to admit closeness to Jammeh whose image cannot be sanitized. That is where the dilemma lies because APRC is committed only to Jammeh and upholding a saintly image of him, his victims be damned.
To this day, APRC charges all commissions set up to probe Jammeh administration’s conducts as bogus. They dismiss the findings of the Janneh commission that probed Jammeh’s finances and misappropriation of state funds as bogus and attack the commissioners of that body. They launched an incessant attack on the findings of the Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) during its sittings and after they issued their findings while going after individual commissioners with smear campaigns or attacking witnesses who testified in the commission’s probe into the human rights violations perpetrated under Jammeh’s watch or by his orders. They challenge the needed Security Sector reform as targeting the Jola ethnic group simply because Jammeh is Jola, never mind his open favoritism based on loyalty and tribal affiliations.
Not to diminish the magnitude of the crimes uncovered by all commissions, especially the TRRC, the most stinging of all the failures of Barrow, thanks to his greed for power, which requires appeasing the APRC, he derailed the efforts made to give The Gambia a new constitution to help us do away with Jammeh’s repressive 1997 constitution.
APRC members of the National Assembly opposed the proposed draft constitution on grounds that the 1997 constitution is Jammeh’s legacy, and they had the full backing of the APRC leadership, including Fabakary Tombong Jatta who got elevated to be the Speaker of the National Assembly deputized by Seedy Njie, another Jammeh loyalist who, in fact went into exile with Jammeh only to return a few months later to be Adama Barrow’s most trusted lieutenant.
We all know Jammeh talks to his men, none less so than Fabakary Tombong Jatta who is currently number three in the line of succession to the presidency should anything unforeseen happen during a president’s term.
It is really mind boggling to see the government of Adama Barrow through Ebrima Sankareh feign anger at the proposition that Barrow and Jammeh are not estranged. I do not know if that should be more insulting to the APRC or to the Gambian people that they are trying to take for fools.
Barrow, early on in his presidency kept talking about his “legacy” and would cite the need for a new constitution, the need for security sector reform and the pending recommendations of the TRRC. Why did all those projects suddenly hit a wall after he secured a second term after cavorting with APRC? All he talks about now is “roads and bridges.” Institutional reforms as a legacy project have been shelved all because Jammeh’s legacy must persist as demanded by APRC.
Try as they may, Adama Barrow has sealed his own legacy, and it is one of utter disregard for the plight of the victims of Jammeh, of greed for power and slapping Gambians in the face by forging that immoral alliance with unapologetic perpetrators of the worst crimes against Gambians. That is the only reason why we could not move to a third republic. A shameful legacy!
Mankajang 