Dear editor,
I wish to add my voice to the comments and/or remarks on the ugly incident in Kanilai; two wrongs can never make a right. This country is governed by laws and anybody who disobeys the law should bear the consequences.
Demonstrations are allowed in our laws but those who demonstrate must follow the law by seeking for permission from the police. Nobody has the right to take the law into your hands and do whatever you like. People are missing the meaning of real democracy you are given certain rights so long as your actions do not trample on other people’s rights. People need to understand that in a democracy freedom, lives and liberties are guaranteed to people but these are not to be used to create Hell for their neighbours. Since Government has sworn to protect people and their properties they should apply the full force of the law on those who break it. My advice to the youth is to act as responsible citizens bearing in mind that if they behave negatively and cause mayhem those affected would mainly come from their families – fathers, mothers, uncles, brothers etc. As future leaders and citizens their actions should be geared towards building a highly developed and prosperous country for themselves and their children. Rights and privileges are guaranteed for everybody under the law but every right goes with a responsibility. The Government belongs to all of us and it is our right to hold them accountable and as citizens we can criticize those in authority but we must do it in a responsible manner. Thus the maintenance of peace is a pre- requisite for development and whatever we do or say must be done in the right way i.e. with dignity and respect.
Leaders and/or rulers come and go. Therefore we all need to accept CHANGE when it comes. The Gambia remains a sovereign nation and no one is ordained to rule or lead forever.
The creator of the Universe Almighty God destined that the current President of the Gambia would rule this country at this time. So who are you to say no? What has been destined must come to past. The former President replaced the first President in fact through unconstitutional means. He ruled with an iron fist for two decades and Gambians voted to change his Government. Therefore, if we really are the religious people we portray ourselves to be let us accept God’s decision – Vox Populi, Vox Dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God.)
Gambians and all those living in the country need to rally behind the status quo and move forward to develop the motherland.
Government will address the issue of the shootings which resulted in the killing and wounding of some demonstrators. The military/ security forces, be they ECOWAS or Gambian, are duty-bound to protect the people but not to shoot at them no matter the circumstances. The matter needs thorough investigation and the perpetrators brought to justice, the due process of the law needs to be applied here. The ‘Maslaha’ has to end – let us all give peace a chance as peace and stability are the undisputed keys to development. Those who break the law should face the consequences.
Long live peaceful Gambians and may God continue to bless our nation.
Henry M Jawo
A19, Bakoteh Housing Estate
Responding to a gloomy and peevish letter
Dear editor,
I write to respond to a letter published by your newspaper dated Tuesday 06th June, 2017. Indeed I extremely empathize at how some ungrateful so-called educated Gambians who by far completely and deliberately lock the peculiar realities which is about to repose our motherland to a perfect sepulchers if we do not carefully navigate our political thought.
Abubakar Darbo without sorry you are very egocentric and splenetic but you cannot blotter the undisputable meekest attitude of the people of Foni because it is the Almighty that meed them with that lovely attitude. Judging by the several petulant and inhuman statements which by all standard no way near democracy corroborates that you are no more than a venomous devise that seeks to annihilate the legitimate settlement and existence of the people of Kanilai and its surrounding villages.
A Hitler like attitude of yours, believe me, can never propel you to attain celestial reward. So please sound and act like one that has truly acquired a better education that could harmoniously, in a tranquil and equivalent manner, benefit all humans on the face of the earth instead of instigating government to commit more inhuman treatment to only selected area, why? I will never let you barf your undesirable manners towards my people. If this regime in a swift manner desire to be quickly redesigned to permanently become paralytic and a toothless mouth, let them use your think-tank strategy and relocate people of Kanilai.
Your manipulative hypocritical and blatant statement you use to justify about the uneventful incident causing indemnity and damages by the Senegalese forces thereby hatefully, furiously and mulishly with impunity hit unarmed civilians with live bullets, civilians who do not destroy any state property. Darbo, in 1981 around 30th July when Kukoi Samba Sanyang of Foni Wassadum launched an abortive coup against the PPP government, did Jawara order or did any discipline or indiscipline Gambian citizen suggest the need to force the villagers to desert and be relocated? You must thrive hard to flush bitterness of the thing you concealed in your heart against the former government please. Your suggestion in the last two paragraphs is nothing but a total rage, hatred Zionist and apartheid philosophy but please be admonished. ”Speak what is lawful or remain silent” for the sake of humanity. Darbo tell me one practical democratic country on planet earth which exterminated the legitimate existence of a village because politically they are obnoxious. Look, behave like a Muslim and a brilliant man in the use of your tongue. Adolf Hitler manipulated the most brilliant people of his country with just the wrong use of the word, he committed them and, like a big bang, there was human carnage in the nastiest way possible. Keep your paralytic and very imbalance truth at yourself and let us be because no born of a woman can stop the darkness at night and brightness during the day. Darbo no matter how one hates the sun it will be foolish to cast an evil eye on it in the early afternoon. The Jola man says he who fetches fire wood highly infested with ants invites the lizards to eat and if a grasshopper chooses to be obnoxious in the jungle, it will one day end up in a chameleon’s stomach as supper. If you were personally not a hard line tribal then why did you keep your mouth aloof regarding violent rioters in Farato village found in Kombo South who burnt a bulldozer and another vehicle to ash, obstruct both officers and the personnel who went there to officially coordinate the demolition process of the said compounds? Despite they are wrongfully settled they made both videos and audios clearly manifesting their true defiance to the government orders in the strongest term possible and was there many tongue licking noises or gunshots, injuries and killing of any civilian? When it was very evident of the government properties they damage.
Finally, let us be very rational and commit ourselves to our freedom song, the national anthem of The Gambia, and do away with counter politics that can only lead us to a serious internal political dissension. Today, many Africans across all ages are gripped with fiercer hunger, starvation illiteracy, ignorance, diseases, destitute, insecurity, homelessness and undesirable human inflicted death because of an advice like yours vehemently containing all the yardstick of tribalism in the name of nationalism and safeguarding the newly intuitive democracy. Your transitive cat-like attitude shall only be straggle and aught even if you use the last strength of your seplenials. Even Nigeria did not recommend settlement around the Boko Haram suspected areas to be annihilated and relocated much more Kanilai; stop misleading, misguiding and utterance of inciting statement which cannot be fulfilled without conceding a good number of human causalities. This country is pregnant[sheltered] with a human population under two million, please let us give marvelous advice which could reunite and rekindle our tolerance as enshrined in the national anthem, I quote “we strive and work and pray, that all may live in unity, freedom and peace each day, let justice guide our action to prove man’s brotherhood.” Young man where are these manners when you were writing your letter? May Allah help you write what will engender peace and not what will cause destruction of lives and properties.
General Lamin A Bojang
Busumbala
