By Alagie Saidy Barrow
…And so, to attain reverence or to gain respect and admiration, some people make outlandish claims about their “ability” to heal others or assume some other form of supernatural ability. It is no surprise therefore, that one of the commonalities among dictators is the satisfaction they get by appearing to possess supernatural powers.
In their efforts to convince people of their godlikeness or supernatural abilities — by a kind of circular reasoning — some dictators demand to be regarded as gods by their citizens. The Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier was reported to have literally changed the Lord’s Prayer thus:
“Our Doc, who art in the National Palace for life, Hallowed be Thy name by present and future generations. Thy will be done at Port-au-Prince and in the provinces. Give us this day our new Haiti and never forgive the trespasses of the anti-patriots who spit every day on our country; let them succumb to temptation, and under the weight of their venom, deliver them not from any evil.”
Saparmurat Niyazov, dictator of Turkmenistan, named days of the week after himself while assuming a godlike status over his country. He wrote a book that, according to him, would get anyone into heaven if they read it three times. He said God had told him so. When Idi Amin expelled Asians from Uganda, he claimed that God had appeared to him in person and asked him to do so. Yahya Jammeh said his ability to cure diseases was a “mandate from God,” …
…In claiming that he could cure such diseases as AIDS, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and more, Jammeh posed as a dangerous and quixotic polymath whom many people outside the Gambia just laughed at along with the people who cheered his nonsense.
…Right by Yahya Jammeh’s side in this abuse of Gambians was Dr. Tamsir Mbowe, Dr. Mariatou Jallow, Dr Malick Njie, and a teeming crowd of admirers and enablers who hailed Jammeh’s supernatural abilities. Ansumana Jammeh, Yahya’s half-brother, whom he also made an ambassador at some point, was also key in the abuse, along with one Nyima Badgie.
“Patients” under the PATP were not allowed to take any other medications — strictly Jammeh’s concoctions and nothing else. AIDS patients, aware of the stigma they lived with, tried to cover their faces when Jammeh’s propaganda cameras showed up; they were initially told they would not be paraded on television — only to find out later this was a lie. This charade of Jammeh’s cures continued for almost ten years, and many Gambians were uncaring or oblivious to the suffering of fellow Gambians right before their eyes. Some patients, out of fear, would say that they felt better when Jammeh’s minions asked them…
Dr Malick Njie and Dr Mariatou Jallow both later disavowed the “treatment,” and Dr Jallow admitted she cooperated with the process because she was afraid not to. Dr Njie claimed he confronted Jammeh about the efficacy of the treatment, and at some point, Jammeh sidelined him. It should be noted that in 1994, Dr. Njie was Health Minister for the AFPRC junta for about five days before he was ambushed and locked up in prison by Jammeh’s security forces. He was subsequently released and brought back into the APRC fold by Jammeh.
After the “Mandate from God”
On January 17, 2007, Jammeh declared on GRTS that he was expanding his “treatment” program. There was no shortage of Gambians jubilating about this breakthrough treatment expansion and there was “well-meaning” Gambians who wanted to contribute their quota to the “cures” that no other human had hitherto accomplished. Jammeh’s mouthpiece, the Daily Observer, kicked into overdrive tabulating the number of patients who were being treated…
According to the Daily Observer, about eight months into the abusive treatment, Gambian institutions, parastate organizations, government departments, and individuals—mired in sycophancy—would donate almost D2.5 million to Jammeh. This effort was led by none other than Neneh MacDouall-Gaye, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, who without an iota of sympathy for the victimized patients noted:
Your Excellency, you have also said you are going to cure, not because of fame which you have already had or money but for the sake of humanity. Some of us who have been in the media and privileged to be present during the first treatment can attest to the fact that some of the patients came under difficult health conditions and you were able to restore their health conditions.
On that same occasion, Baba Mustapha Marong, the Permanent Secretary at the same Ministry, not to be outdone in the art of sycophancy, said all the right things to please Jammeh:
I do not intend to say much about the treatment and how it was conducted because there are more competent people to do that. However, I am as qualified as anyone in the country to say President Jammeh’s treatment for HIV/AIDS, asthma and diabetes works. Our inability to explain how it works does not reduce anything from the validity of the therapies. Research and experience show that people want to support ideas that will make a difference in other people’s lives. Too often they are presented with conventional, poorly articulated ideas that failed to convince. The President’s initiative is definitely not one of these, hence the willingness of Gambians to support. Many Gambians feel it is a collective moral responsibility to support the initiative.
On January 21, 2011, Jammeh held a meeting with his supporters and government officials. This being the fourth year of his “treatment” program and still riding high on his godlike status, he claimed that he could also cure sickle cell anemia, and that out of eleven patients he had seen, nine were cleared of the disease within a month. The other two took forty-five days to be cured, he said. Jammeh said he had asked Dr Mbowe why it took some patients thirty days to be cured and the others forty-five days, and Mbowe told him there were different varieties of sickle cell, and that was why the treatment times varied. Jammeh said they had seen eight people who had strokes and were paralyzed, but they too were cured and were walking and going about their business, adding it took just five minutes for him to treat hypertension/high blood pressure. Undeterred, Jammeh asked for a list of individuals with asthma that he could review before committing himself to curing them. A list was brought to him, and he read that there were 1,191 people who had registered for the asthma treatment. He promised all of them that he could treat them in one day, and that they would all receive treatment before Independence Day, February 18. Cheers erupted and smiles creased the faces of those in attendance, all in awe of his godliness (or dumbfounded by his boldfaced lies). If Gambians around Jammeh had mastered anything during his tyrannical reign, it was how to smile in every situation so they could mask their true feelings.
(Excerpt, The Dictator Is Us).
