By Samsudeen Sarr
Well Mr Marong, I was last night somewhat preoccupied with the political chaos in Washington DC when I accidentally bumped into your infantile article on Freedom Newspaper sloppily trying to pick a fight with me rather than ‘defend’ Mr. Tamsir Jassey.
I made a short comment on your article highlighting what I expected when I first read the headline and before scrolling down to realize that you authored the article and not Tamsir Jassey, my character in question.
So as indicated in my comment I had expected you to answer the questions raised in my paper about whom Mr. Jassey had submitted his police-reform-document to in December 1994 that couldn’t have been the IGP Pa Sallah Jagne he had claimed to have received it because the police chief at the time was with me in Mile Two Central Prisons, locked up by Sana Sabally and Sadibou Hydara. But I still toyed with the qualification that if he had actually submitted the document to IGP Pa Sallah Jagne, the period must have been before the coup and not after. Meaning that he deliberately lied to the TRRC for saying that his concerns on the need for a police reform in the post-coup era inspired him to write his recommendations. I strongly believe that he concealed the fact that he had started charming the Gambia government with his fancy experience and credentials for a job during the PPP days; and an attempt to sell the idea of coming up with better reform ideas than the command in the Jawara regime wouldn’t have augured well to any sane listener. The Jammeh regime was better portrayed as the incompetent one he could easily peddle to Jammeh’s greatest hater Essa Faal than that of Jawara’s. Essa couldn’t care less about verifying the dates and logic in your hero’s testimony as long as it was all about butchering the image of Jammeh.
I also expected you to defend the TRRC’s inconsistency or hypocrisy in humiliating and ridiculing Gorgi Mboob, a foot-officer for his “unacceptable” role in the bloody April 10-11 2000 students demonstration but spared Mr. Jassey the tough scrutiny who had happened to be the the police adviser at the time on whose tactical recommendation Mboob had probably operated on. But that was again about my “irrational disagreement with the TRRC”, right?
I further couldn’t understand his nativity for supporting a coup d’tat, with all its dangerous implications and not give a damn to those involved in the conspiracy except two he barely knew anything about, Alieu Jobe and Lang Tombong Tamba. Sounds like another stinky one.
I could go on pointing the holes in his porous exegesis but will stop at the few mentioned above.
However, I said that you were not defending Mr. Jassey but rather picking a fight with me with definitely no sophistication in your arsenals. Obviously, you appear to dislike my frequent criticism of the TRRC when I find their activities reprehensible which I am afraid will continue to frustrate you as long as the proceedings are on, because I am not your average Joe fashioned to swallow any garbage from lightweight schemers.
Anyway I need you to understand that my book, Coup d’tat by the Gambia National Army that you read and tried to use against me for unkindly mentioning certain officers’ role before, during or after the 1994 coup was a cheap shot and rather juvenile. You haven’t necessarily listened to my interviews or read my writings about how I sincerely regretted such remarks and offered my serious apology to all those affected including the former President Yahya Jammeh.
I am glad that you read the book which otherwise would have tuned you into some of those foolish critics who had never read it but distorted my apology as a denial of the credibility of the contents. Nonetheless you also stooped low and generalized that some folks had disputed the facts in the book without being specific on the events or persons. That is pure intellectual dishonesty further manifested in your attempt to make your readers believe that you understand the rank structure of the US Navy better than me when I was trained in three different US military institutions as a commissioned officer. Now, get this in your illusionary mindset buddy that an E-7 service member in the US Navy is not a commissioned officer but just another-rank entrusted with no tactical or strategic command responsibility to qualify such person as an IGP in any police force.
Parading academic opportunities and achievements while serving in the US Navy or after will not cut it either. I have long ago transcended the gullibility of venerating insignificant credentials from nugatory disciplines from foreign academies. In fact I have had enough from so-called Phd holders proportional in scope and efficiency to my former form-three students at Latri-Kunda Junior Secondary School. So please cut me the crap of listing worthless degrees from foreign universities only marketable in the Gambia. I am of course talking about the infinite useless graduates living at home and aboard, “self-employed” or engaged in occupations irrelevant to their qualifications but saving their toilet papers for employment by a friendlier Gambia government. They are today the loudest howlers for political change because the ass-kissers beat them in the rat race and stole all the limited-lucrative jobs. They can’t understand the planet Barrow originated from!
You seem to know me better than I know you. In fact I don’t know anything about you and never even heard of you; but overtime, while we last in the ring, I hopefully might come to know more about you to help me figure out where you are coming from. Are you by any way Mr. Tamsir Jassey’s brother or something? What a lousy defense!
I will conclude by saying this Mr. Marong, if you want to defend Mr. Jassey, make sure you prepare yourself better with specifics on the subjects you want to raise for discussion. But if it is about me, I have all the time and energy to stretch this to its limits.
