By Alhagie Saidy Barrow
In the twenty-two years of Yahya Jammeh’s dictatorship, no single event has been more horrific than the killing and maiming of innocent schoolchildren in April 2000. This would be the first time that Gambians with no political affiliation were murdered for simply demanding government accountability…
Dictators work hard to project an image of a peaceful, stable, and efficiently-run country and work even harder to propagate the idea that all the credit for the “success” is due to their competent leadership. During the dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh, efficiency was measured in public infrastructural developments. By building more roads…
For Jammeh, it was unfathomable that students could rise on their own and stage a demonstration, especially given all the “developments” he brought to the education sector. In his mind, anyone who demonstrated against his government was not only unpatriotic but also jeopardizing the safety and security of the nation….
While the students were demonstrating, Vice President Njie-Saidy said she had meetings with all concerned government agencies but according to her, she was never briefed in real time on what was happening around the country. She said she was unable to get the facts on the ground from the security chiefs because she was “unable to get proper communication.” However, despite not knowing the facts, she still went before the nation and proclaimed that the shooting that occurred had come from the student demonstrators themselves. Testifying before the TRRC…
In 2001, President Jammeh, enabled by the Ministry of Justice and the moribund National Assembly led by Speaker Mustapha Wadda, passed a law granting blanket indemnity to security forces “for any fact, matter or omission of an act, or things done or purported to have been done during any unlawful assembly, public disturbance, riotous situation or period of public emergency.” This stinking law….
Unsurprisingly, when the commotion settled, Isatou Njie-Saidy’s claim of “feeling really bad” was demonstrated through a single visit to the wounded students admitted to the hospital at the time. Like her, many Gambians soon forgot about these children, and the victims were left to the care of their families, without any compensation from the government that was responsible for their injuries. The culture of denial, justification, rationalization, and silence reached its nadir in the aftermath of this massacre of “our own children.” APRC government officials adopted the narrative that the children had been unruly and ill-disciplined and that it was the West, through the opposition parties, that sent the students to demonstrate.
That senior government officials had failed these children became even more apparent when they started blaming one another for what happened. Isatou Njie-Saidy claimed that the Minister of Education Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta and the security chiefs had refused to honour her invitation to a meeting that sought to address the grievances of the students before things got out of hand. And the security chiefs themselves also blamed one another…
In dealing with witnesses, I found that not taking responsibility for one’s actions is an endemic behaviour in The Gambia. Politicians or officials are quick to take credit for any “successes” while in office, but they tend to distance themselves from anything that can be remotely labelled a failure.
…But Isatou Njie-Saidy was hardly the only one to say whatever would please Jammeh just to keep her job. The APRC government narrative claimed that GAMSU was some kind of clandestine anti-government organisation and that the GAMSU leaders were bad sons and daughters of The Gambia, a typical Yahya Jammeh spiel. In Yahya Jammeh’s world, patriotism meant one thing: loyalty to him…
Jammeh would go on to say:
As far as I’m concerned, I can raise my hand in Africa; no head of state can challenge me. What I have done for the young people of this country, nobody else has done it. Not the British in 400 years. We have done everything…
Yahya Jammeh and his APRC government would slowly dismantle GAMSU and replace it with a student union that was more palatable to Jammeh’s tyrannic taste. Enter the National Patriotic Students Association (NAPSA).
NAPSA
The birth of NAPSA was reminiscent of Jammeh’s divide-and-conquer strategy. He managed to break up a large association (GAMSU) and replace it with one that would be pliant and cooperative with his purposes. Jammeh had learned over the years that the loyalty of many Gambians could be bought, and if he had to induce or coerce that loyalty, then so be it. The APRC banned GAMSU and replaced it with the National Patriotic Students’ Association (NAPSA), which was formed in November 2001, spearheaded by Baba Jobe and Neneh MacDouall-Gaye, two of Jammeh’s acolytes. Their goal was to engender a student union that would toe the dictatorial line.
NAPSA members went on to become darlings of Yahya Jammeh and his APRC government. Some members were given scholarships to study in Taiwan, and others would go on to benefit from other APRC government largesse in the form of career advancement and other financial benefits. In October 2000, Mamburay Njie, who was then ambassador to Taiwan, and was facilitating the scholarships for the APRC government, urged the Taiwanese government to increase the scholarships given to Gambians in Taiwan. These scholarships were supposed to be merit- or need-based, but no “unpatriotic” student could get them no matter what his or her merit or needs were.
NAPSA members were feted at the State House and in Yahya Jammeh’s home in Kanilai. To demonstrate their “patriotism” to Jammeh, they “secured and cultivated” a ten-hectare farm in Kanilai, which was given to them by Kora Faye (a Kanilai farm manager) under Jammeh’s directive. According to the Daily Observer, during Ramadan in 2007, NAPSA corralled 225 students from the Kombo region to go and work on Jammeh’s farm in Kanilai, and NAPSA’s chairperson, Modou Alieu Jallow, said it was their “contribution” to national development in support of the “President’s Empowerment of Girls’ Education” program. For their “efforts” in making this “national development” possible, Jallow thanked “Yahya Jammeh; Omar Gibba, national coordinator for NAPSA; Fatou Lamin Faye, Minister for Basic and Secondary Education; Hon. Seedy Njie, nominated National Assembly Member; Kora Faye, Kanilai farm manager; and all NAPSA members.” These were the patriots in the eyes of Jammeh.
Jammeh’s reign in The Gambia was characterized by social exchange theory that precipitated a culture of opportunism. Jammeh blatantly showed preference for those who were within his circle and rewarded individuals who were the most exuberant in their support for him. Students throughout the country went out of their way to get noticed by Jammeh or by those closest to him to get a share of his benevolence. Loyalty to Yahya Jammeh was conflated with loyalty to the nation. Along the way, many students became virtual zombies of the APRC government, never questioning anything and always toeing the “patriotic” line that Jammeh championed. Many individuals who lacked aptitude, thrived in the APRC government because good character was dispensable, and some of these individuals started their opportunistic careers in NAPSA…
When the dust of the April 10 – 11 killings settled, at least sixteen individuals were killed in two days of demonstrations. This was followed by a coordinated cover-up of the incident, beginning with the Gambia Police Force…
(May the souls of the departed continue to rest in Jannah and may those left behind find justice and healing someday).
