President Jammeh is two titles richer with the addition of ‘Nasirudeen, Babili Mansa’ to his official name, according to a press release from the Office of the president. The press release indicated that “with effect from Thursday, August 14, 2014 the Gambian leader should now be addressed His Excellency, Sheikh, Professor, Doctor, Alhaji Yahya AJJ Jammeh, Nasirudeen, Babili Mansa”.
Speaking to The Standard yesterday Yankuba Colley elucidated: “These are names the president has been given a long time ago but it is just now they have been made official. This could not have come at a better time and for a more deserving person. President Jammeh is the first person in the history of The Gambia to bridge over places where nobody ever did. He has built bridges in Janjangbureh and Kerewan and the next place he is going to build is Basse. This has enhanced transport for many people in that area and enhanced economic development in the country.
“The president has also been a helper of religion in more ways than I can enumerate. He has built more than ten mosques in the capital Banjul, 20 in KMC and the same goes for other regions. Every year he sponsors a lot of people to go to Mecca on pilgrimage in fulfillment of a fundamental tenet of the Islamic religion. He has been doing this consistently for many years in pursuit of the pleasure and blessing of Allah. Everybody should recognise and congratulate the president on the new titles because he has earned them through his efforts since July 22nd Revolution. Only jealous people will criticise the official announcement of new titles for a man who has done so much for this country.”
The supreme Islamic Council president Mommodou Lamin Touray had said of the president in a recent interview with The Standard: “I swear by Allah, the Most Supreme, no president has ever ruled this country who has built more mosques than President Jammeh. He has single-handedly taken many people to Mecca for pilgrimage – no person has ever done that since our independence. The prizes he had given for Qur’anic competitions, I have never seen anywhere even in all the countries where I have been to. The support and ease he has rendered to Muslims, I have never seen anywhere ever. People who are outside do not know this. Communities would normally approach us to help them with a mosque. We would also negotiate and lobby from our partners and other philanthropists until we acquire the required funds and when we are ready for construction then a managing director would refuse to allow us to embark on the project. He might be a Muslim but he is afraid the area belongs to government. That is why he cannot give us the approval to go ahead with the construction process. Numerous mosque construction projects have been cancelled in this country prior to the coming to power of Yahya Jammeh… Truly, he is a kind of person who no Muslim should hate and if you harbour any rancour against him, you are doing it without any justification because he hasn’t done anything to your religion and religion is what you should be concerning yourself about. That is the reason why we love him and we do love him and we are with him all the way because we are happy”.
Nasirudeen translates from Arabic as ‘Defender of The Faith’ while Babili Mansa translates from Mandinka as ‘The Sea Crowning King’ or bridge builder.
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