Thursday, July 10, 2014

What a bunch of hypocrites

Momodou Lamin Touray and a bundle of cash.  SHAME SHAME
Hon. Buba Baldeh, former Minister of Youth and Sports in the Jawara regime who also served as youth mobilizer in Jammeh's political party (APRC) and Managing Director of Jammeh's privately held newspaper, The Daily Observer, died in Dakar.  The former Minister was in exile in the Senegalese capital where he was active in opposing the dictatorship in Banjul.

The Senegalese government and relatives of Hon. Buba Baldeh provided all the necessary measures and support befitting a man of his caliber and service to The Gambia and the sub-region.  Local Senegalese dignitaries joined family and friends of the former Minister to accompany the body to his native town of Basse Mansajang for burial.

While he was under treatment, he felt the need to express his wish to be buried in Mansajang.  His second option was to be interred in Medina Gounnass in Senegal in case the dictator denies him his right to be buried in his own country.  Jammeh has denied the family and friends of Kukoi Samba Sagnia, the leader of the 1981 coup d'etat similar wish, and Buba Baldeh witness the denial which suggested that he may encounter similar fate.  Was he so right in life as he is in death.

The refusal to allow safe passage of the body of a son of The Gambia by a non-Gambian like Yaya Jamus Junkung Jammeh is one more slap in the face of Gambians by someone whose origins are still as fuzzy as a peach.  According to reports, local politicians in Hon. Baldeh's hometown who falsely promised to have sought and were granted permission for the body to be allowed into the country were suddenly unavailable to provide answers as to why entry was denied.

The Commissioner of the Division and the local MP, Nettie Baldeh, who happens to be a close relative to the deceased, obviously were lying because they have no access to the dictator.  If his Ministers, including the Foreign Minister, do not have access to him, neither his phone number, we do not think that a lowly Commissioner (in Jammeh's world) and a member of one of the most ridiculously insignificant and powerless Parliament on earth will have access to Yaya Jammeh. 

The hypocrisy that permeates Gambian society is not limited to public servants but has seeped through the cracks infecting the Muslim community and the Supreme Islamic Council and its Associate Mullahs.  These people are not only hypocrites but they are among the most corrupt in Gambian society.  Their propensity to come to the defense of Yaya Jammeh is beyond belief.  It was only last week that we were being lectured by the head of the Islamic Council about how we, as Muslims, should love Yaya Jammeh.  While another Mullah preached about the virtue of submitting to the will of the dictatorship, and actually justifying the killing of opponents of political leaders. 

Our question to the Chief Mullah, President of Supreme Islamic Council is does Yaya Jammeh have the divine power to deny the relatives and friends of Hon. Buba Baldeh the right to bury their husband, father, grand-father, uncle, friend and colleague in his native Mansajang.

We want Momodou Lamin Touray of the SIC to tell Gambians what the Kuran says about Jammeh's action.  Let him return to The Standard newspaper to respond to the thousands of family and friends of Hon. Buba Baldeh about the vile actions of Jammeh relating his treatment of one of the most illustrious sons of not only Basse Mansajang but of the Gambia.