The Journal’s Take On The Week Gone, January 31st to February 8th

 

A personalized review of news and events of the previous week as presented by The Journal touching on various topics like the Carnegie Minerals, Gamcotrap trial, various court cases, apology of the National Assembly, etc, etc.

 

Remember Carnegie Minerals? The UK-based Australian mining company that ventured into elminite mining in The Gambia some years back and ended up being bulldozed by President Jammeh with allegations of illegal mining, money-laundering and all what not? Sure you cannot wholly forget the dramatic saga with its thrilling twists involving the escape of the company’s Gambia-based CEO with the help of a hired agent of some sort. Well not much has been heard of the case lately but some of President Jammeh’s shady business partners, closed to Muhammed Bazzi, have been mining the fields at Sanyang village for years now and few know under what terms and conditions. When he gave the company two weeks “to come out clean” on the gold, Uranium and other precious minerals that the company was supposedly mining without any legitimate authority, President Jammeh used the occasion to let the whole world know that The Gambia was sitting on precious minerals the like of which is found in few places on this earth. Like the oil deposits before it, nothing has been heard of efforts to exploit the minerals.

 

It must have been as Carnegie officials said, laboratory test say of any mineral sand will indicate the presence of small amounts of various minerals precious and not so precious, but this does not mean their presence in any substantial or economical volumes. Whatever, in another display of the routine executive illegality that transpires in the Gambia, President Jammeh and his Lebanese conmen has taken over the properties of the Carnegie Minerals Ltd without waiting for the courts?

 

The matter having to do with Carnegie Minerals that came up in the courts last week has not to do with the mines. Last Friday the Kanifing Magistrates' Court entered judgment in favor of one Kutubo Jakah Touray against Carnegie Minerals. The trial magistrate ordered the defendant, Carnegie Minerals, to pay the plaintiff $11,000 being arrears of outstanding rent from 15 December 2009.

Carnegie Minerals was also ordered to deliver to the plaintiff possession of the property, which is presently locked, within 14 days from the date of this judgment.

 

A rate of 15 per cent interest per annum was awarded to the plaintiff against the defendant.

The trial magistrate allowed profits at the rate of $458 per month from 15 December 2008, to be paid to the plaintiff. A cost charge of D10, 000 was also awarded to the plaintiff.

In his judgment, Magistrate Abeke stated that the plaintiff, Kutubo Jakah Touray, was claiming from the defendant, Carnegie Minerals, US$5,500, being rent arrears from 15 December 2009; possession interest at the rate of 15 per cent per annum, and profits at the rate of US$458 per month from 15 December 2009; as well as court charges. Carnegie had been carrying out, with the knowledge and approval of Jammeh and his henchmen,  clandestine mining in the country well before the official opening by VICE president AJA Isatou Njie Saidy in July 2006.

 

One of the cases against former Inspector-General of Police, Ensa Badjie, came up at the Banjul High Court last week giving the highly embittered man his first chance to address the court. For almost twelve months Badjie had been trying to address the court without being allowed as it was not his chance yet. But last week, in a trial within a trial held to determine if he had voluntarily given his statement to the police, Badjie had his first chance to speak out in court.

 

He told the court presided over by Justice Emmanuel Amadi of the Banjul High Court that he endured lots of pain and humiliation for two weeks due to severe torture he encountered in the hands of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) during events leading to obtaining of his statements at the agency.

The former IGP claimed that he was tortured and abused when statements were being obtained from him at the NIA. Badjie said, "When Omar Cham brought those statements for me to sign, I refused to sign because the content in those statements were not that of me. After my refusal, Cham cautioned me and told me what they did to Sillaba Samateh (tortured) will also be applied on me."

Continuing his narration, Badjie revealed that when he refused to append his signature on those statements both his hands "were handcuffed". "I was told to sit on the floor at the conference hall on10th March 2010," the former police chief told the court. "Cham and others put an iron bar between my legs and jacked me up between the two chairs with an iron bar. They started beating me until they were tired and I was crying in their hands. I was seriously tortured and I was left with no further choice but to sign those statements which I earlier refused to sign at that night."

 

The former police chief, once described by President Jammeh as the “best police chief ever,” is facing 51-count indictment alongside two senior military officers, Major Kuluteh Manneh and Lt Colonel Mam Matarr Secka, before Justice Emmanuel Amadi of the Banjul High Court. The charges against them include abuse of office, official corruption, conspiracy to commit a felony, obtaining goods and money by false pretence, and economic crime and the case is just one out of several against him that have been dragging in the various courts for about a year now.

"I did not write those statements. I wanted to write my own but Cham insisted and said that one of the panel members should write it for me," Badjie told the court, adding that he was maltreated at the conference hall, where there were chains, handcuffs and offensive tools.

"When I was taken back to the prisons, I was bleeding through my nose. It took me two weeks to endure the pain due to severe beating."

It may not be just to write tat what goes around comes around. Torture in this country is widespread and generally considered standard praxis until one is subjected to it.

 

That was the former Police chief, also in court last week Tuesday 1st of February, there emerged the case of five former top government officials, two former permanent secretaries at the Ministry of Agriculture and three other ex-officials of the same ministry who had been remanded in custody by the Banjul Magistrates' Court presided over by Acting Principal Magistrate Taiwo Ade Alegbe.

 

Dr. Amadou Sowe, ex-permanent secretary No.1; Abdourahman Jobe, ex-permanent secretary No 2; Momodou Mbye Jabang, ex-project manager; Mustapha Jatta, ex-accounts clerk; and Bakary LO Sonko, ex-deputy director, Cape Point, all at the Ministry of Agriculture are charged with stealing by clerk and servant contrary to Section 258 of the Criminal Code Cap 10 Vol 111, Laws of The Gambia, 1990.

 

The particulars of the offence stated that Dr. Amadou Sowe between the months of March to September 2010 at the Ministry of Agriculture being the permanent secretary fraudulently approved and received on various occasions the total sum of D314, 133.62 (Three hundred and fourteen thousand, one hundred and thirty-three dalasi, sixty-two bututs) from the Gambia National Agricultural Investment Programme (GNAIP) fund.

 

It also revealed that Abdourahman Jobe between the months of March to September 2010 at the said ministry being the deputy permanent secretary fraudulently approved and received on various occasions the total sum of D87,400.00 (Eighty-seven thousand, four hundred dalasi) from GNAIP fund. The particulars also disclosed that Momodou Mbye Jabang between the months of March to September 2010 at the same ministry being the project manager fraudulently received on various occasions the total sum of D350,606.00 (Three hundred and fifty thousand, six hundred and six dalasi) from GNAIP fund.

 

Mustapha Jatta between the months of March and September 2010 at the same ministry being the accounts clerk fraudulently received on various occasions the total sum of D69,500.00 (Sixty-nine thousand, five hundred dalasi) from GNAIP fund.

 

Bakary LO Sonko between the months of March to September 2010 at the said ministry being the deputy director Cape Point fraudulently received on various occasions the total sum of D303, 000.00 (Three hundred and three thousand dalasi) from GNAIP fund, and thereby committed an offence. All five former government officials were denied bail.

 

In court last week Lawyer Amie Bensouda, the defense counsel for the two top Gamcotrap officials, continued her cross-examination of the PW7, Begonaballes Teros Sanchez before Acting Principal Magistrate Taiwo Ade Alagbe of the Banjul Magistrates Court.  The two revered gender and women rights activists, Dr. Isatou Touray and Amie Bojang-Sissoho, the executive director and programme coordinator respectively of the non-governmental organizations were dragged to court by state officials for alleged theft of project funds provided by Mrs. Sanchez’s Spanish non-governmental organization. The thing that struck many was that the process against the two respected ladies was initiated by the authorities in Banjul and not the organization in Madrid and it came barely a week after the organization announced it was to launch a campaign to convince parliamentarians into banning FGM in the country. The women were arrested and detained before being released on bail and had this allegation of theft slapped against them. Their faces were wide across television screens all over the country during the evening news where they were branded as already convicted thieves. Everyone wondered who took the initiative. State prosecutors were behaving as if it was a Spanish initiative but during cross examination of the director of the Spanish NGO it became clear that it was not a so at all. It was wholly and solely a Gambian state affair, taken up by the state before cooperation of the Spanish partner was enlisted. This was clearly stated by Begonaballes Teros Sanchez in court last week when she was asked this after being accused of conniving with the state to help prosecute former partners in the struggle against FGM.

 

Mrs. Sanchez’s argument is that she made three payments to Gamcotrap in 2009 but Dr. Isatou Touray and her group provided only narrative reports, not financial ones. She even went on to allege that Dr. Touray once told her she was having economic difficulties and had to borrow funds from somewhere to carry on with the project. As far as she was concerned it was a mere case of accountability especially to her original donors in within the Madrid community. She conceded that both monitors sent from Madrid to visit the project in The Gambia had reported laudable things about GAMCOTRAP activities particularly the “drop the knife” campaign but still, they wanted the accounts as her organization must also report financially to her finder. She said she knows that Gamcotrap spent the money somewhere and not into micro-credit but she wants to know where they spent the money. The defense counsel then showed her two email printouts one from herself and the other a reply from Dr. Touray, which she, Amie Bensouda also tendered in evidence as Exhibit. Lawyer Bensouda further tendered two photographs which Sanchez identified in the court.

 

 

 

The crux of the matter appears to be that the two parties disagreed on the use of part of the fund, 30 000 Euros as micro credit  to traditional genital cutters who would then be able to take up alternative small enterprises as means of income. It is a classical case of donor recipient misunderstanding. Female genital cutting is by no means a professional affair in The Gambia as the wide eyed Spaniard may be thinking it is a customary role and not a professional one. The women who specialize on cutting in The Gambia do not do it for means of living. Customers are too far in between for it to be a viable business. So, micro credit appears to be somewhat of a mismatch in the equation. But this is not to say that that micro credit should not be practiced in the country or for the benefit of such women. Gambians, most Gambians, especially women in the countryside, are poor and in need of micro credit.  But GAMCOTRAP is not a micro finance institution, GAWFA (Gambia Women’s Finance Association) is and has trained and equipped staff for it.  Both partners could have tried to delegate the micro finance component of the project to institutions like GAWFA, if it was indeed in the original project document and list of projected activities. But the way Mrs. Sanchez has been speaking, rationalizing, gesticulating and acting in court, her failure to talk straight on her departure date and time, her erratic outbursts at any insinuation of betrayal to the anti-FGM struggle, suggests that she is novice in developmental and awareness-raising projects. Apart from the normal clerical and routine book-keeping mentality of a middle-level clerk, Mrs. Sanchez appear to have little clue about the ways of this world, much less those of a backward one. Perhaps raised according to fascist doctrines of the Franco era. She has natural penchant for cuddling with those in authority be it Caesar or the Pope. And the way it appears, with her “I sent,”  “I wrote,” Mrs. Sanchez may be running a one-woman outfit in Madrid, using it as shield against chronic unemployment. She certainly is not one who cares really much about the horrors of genital mutilation, gender inequality and violence. The case she has joined the authorities to pursue is one that will make many women pick up the knife again.

 

Also in court on Monday 31st January,  renowned state-griot and professional praise-singers, Abdoulie Efry Mbye,  and Momodou Lamin Jarju otherwise known as Rongo,  were charged before acting Principal Magistrate Taiwo Alagba with four counts of criminal offences ranging from giving false information, making false document, uttering false document and prohibition of conduct conducive to the breach of the peace.

 

Count one of the alleged offence stated that Momodou Lamin Jarju and Abdoulie Efry Mbye  in 2010, in Banjul and diverse places in The Gambia, gave false information to the Ministry of Local Government and copied the same to the Secretary General, Office of the President wit: that Alkalo Eric Tundeh Janneh is disuniting the people and grabbing land at Banjulinding in the West Coast Region and that the President’s Office acknowledged Mr. Malang Badjie as the Chairman of the Council of Elders of Banjulinding, an information they knew was false at the time. Both men are members of the ruling APRC party which has long been an arena for rivalry, in-fighting and other opportunistic skirmishes. Both accused persons have denied the charges levied against them.

 

One pleasant news last week was that one American International University (AIU), a private medical university, last Monday commenced operations in The Gambia after the institution's application was approved by the authorities in Banjul. According to information the management of the university had held several discussions with Gambian authorities about the possibility of the establishment of the institution in the country, which led to the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the government last September. The university, according to official sources, will be operating in cordial relationship with the University of The Gambia (UTG) in which both sides will be benefiting from each other's resources and facilities, with AIU's visiting professors rendering lectures to UTG students. The sources said that Guinea’s late president, Lansana Conteh, had laid the foundation stone of the AIU in 1998 in Conakry, with the institution starting as a hospital with the name 'International Medical Centre'. However, due to the political instability that rocked Guinea last year, the management of the university decided to switch over to The Gambia.

 

The AIU is starting operations in The Gambia with 25 students drawn from different African countries like Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Lesotho as well as The Gambia and Senegal. Addressing the new corps of students at the AIU's complex along Kairaba Avenue, Monday, Dinesh Shukla, president of the university thanked President Jammeh and his entire government for the support they have provided to the institution from its conceptualization to date. He stressed that in every institution, it is the student faculty and the administration that defines its strength. "Today is a beginning of a along journey ahead," he told the gathering.

 

Shukla also told the students that they have a challenging task to accomplish while in the university. He assured that the AIU intends to provide its students with the best in their lives to enable them become productive in their aspirations. He added: "You therefore have a big responsibility. You have to keep focus in whatever you are doing. We want you to make your various countries and us proud."

 

He further told the gathering that the university's vision and mission are very clear, with medicine as its basic operational area. He disclosed that the AIU focuses on three main areas, which are School of Medicine (five-year program), School of Dentistry (five-year program) and School of Pharmacy (four-year program). He pointed out that the uniqueness about AIU programs is that students are enrolled immediately they complete their senior secondary school.

 

He said that the university also offers comprehensive and intensive education programs based on the American curriculum. "We want to bring affordable education to Africans," he assured, while reiterating that medical education is relatively expensive. An annual cost for medical studies at the AIU, he said will be between $18 000-20 000 per year, compared to universities in the US, where a student has to pay between $70 000-80 000 per year. "Definitely, we want to synergies our resources with the local people, in which both of us will mutually benefit," he added.

 

Though Gambians are a highly carnivorous people, meat here is consumed more like spice-provider than as a main meal item due to its scarcity and high cost, making it beyond the means of over 60% of people. It is so much so that one is bound to wonder what our cattle population is really. Well last week the Gambia Livestock Marketing Agency (GLMA), a recent President Jammeh initiative, released the results of its nationwide cattle census report for 2010. The month-long exercise was conducted in all regions of the country, covering 1,745 villages and towns, according to agency officials. This is the first livestock census in the country since that of the then Department of Livestock Services in 1993. The authorities are not covering up the fact that the purpose of the survey has to do with the annual cattle tax levied on livestock farmers. According to the report the present cattle population of the country stands at approximately 284, 925 herds, with Central River Region registering the highest number of 92,853 heads followed by the Upper River Region and the Lower River Region with 66,871 and 27,351 heads respectively.

 

The report further indicated that at district level, Upper Fulladu registered the highest cattle population with 20, 415 heads while Upper Numi registered 16,338, with Foni Jarrol having the lowest population with 2, 386. The report highlighted that the figures of the census result represent only cattle kept by farmers for the purpose of breeding or rearing. Those animals in the abattoirs and holding grounds destined for slaughtering, the report added, were not included in the census.

 

The report also stated that from the current figure of 284,925 heads, the cattle population of the Gambia has dropped by 0.85% compared to the census figures of 287,376 of 1993. "Over the period between 1993 and 2010, CRR has seen a steady increase in the number of cattle from 90,097 to 92, 853 heads, NBR from 45,388 heads to 59,937 while URR and WRC has some reduced cattle populations from 84,214 heads to 66,871 and from 40,512 to 37,897 respectively over the same period," the report indicated.

 

The drop in cattle figures in the URR and the corresponding increase in the cattle population in the CRR, the report noted, can be attributed to the permanent settlement of herds from URR into CRR in search of water and feed, while increased cattle theft in the WRC and the resultant abandonment of cattle rearing by some farmers in the region contributed to a drop in cattle population. The report also indicated that the annual decrease in grazing land, the traditional method in animal husbandry, the emergence and re-emergence of livestock diseases and the inadequate disease prevention and control measures have also seriously contributed to the drop in the cattle population of the country.

 

The National Drug Enforcement Agency (NDEA) recently been busy tracking down cannabis dealers and users in the country. Six such were arrested in various locations within the country. Briefing the press on this development, ASP Abdoulie Ceesay, the public relations officer of the NDEA, said on the 29th of January 2011 between 1:00am to 3:00am, NDEA officers laid an ambush at the Siffoe Bridge in the West Coast Region. "After some time, one Sanna Kujabi, a resident of Kotu appeared before the officers, while he was riding a bicycle carrying 2 bags of suspected Cannabis," he revealed. He said the accused was arrested but that later the officers discovered another bicycle that was packed at the other side of the bridge. According to him, that bicycle was also carrying 2 bags of Cannabis and that each bag contained 10 bundles. He said the accused was later taken to Siffoe Police Station.

 

PRO Ceesay also disclosed that on the 26th of January 2011, at about 9:00 am, narcotics officers got a tip-off that one Lamin Darboe had in his possession a bag containing Cannabis from Casamance and that he attempted to smuggle the said drugs to Salikenni in the North Bank Region to one Alieu Darboe and Musa Touray. In a similar incident, the narcotics officers attached to Bullock Check Point, on the 31st January 2011, arrested one Mustapha Jobe of Brufut Village with 9 bundles of suspected Cannabis contained in 2 bags of charcoal at the Check Point during an extensive search.

 

One Kaddy Tamba, a resident of Lamin Village in Kombo North, West Coast Region was also arrested on the 30th of January 2011  whilst she was on board a commercial vehicle, at Bullock Police Check Point, during a search conducted by the narcotics officers. She was found in possession of 4 big bundles of Cannabis concealed in a bag.

 

 

While the police must be congratulated for jobs well done we are of the opinion that the authoriies need to revisit their anti-narcotics policies and strategies.  This will involve differentiating between cannabis sativa and other narcotic drugs like cocaine, crack, and heroine as well as synthetic drugs like ecstasy. The content of tetrahydrocabinol, TTHC, the substance responsible for getting one high, in cannabis is far too small compared to the one in cocaine, heroine and the other drugs. In fact many disagree that cannabis is a narcotic drug. Cannabis is grown domestically, though now most of it comes from war-torn Casamance. Cocaine is a drug of the rich, comes all the way from across the ocean in South America. It is distributed by organized criminal cartels capable of mobilizing own armies and other resources making them potent force for instability, insecurity and disorder.

 

The fight against the two classes of drugs should not be mixed, confused or misunderstood. Concentrating too much attention on cannabis and running after its peddlers bicycles should not be done at the expense of the fight against cocaine and heroine. In fact the authorities should begin looking at the possibility of de-criminalizing the use of the cannabis herbs in order free up resources for the more important fight against cocaine, crack and heroine trafficking.

 

Not long ago we wrote approvingly of the National Assembly’s new found zeal to flex its muscle and show that it is not the rubber-stamp institution that many take it to be. This show was especially in display when members called over the minister and other top officials of the Ministry of Youths & Sports last month to dress them down and compel them to withdraw statements earlier made.  Well it appears this did go down well with Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh.  Last week Wednesday, 2nd February, the speaker of the National Assembly, claiming to be writing  on behalf of both sides of the National Assembly, wrote  to the dictator apologizing over their cause of action and the way and manner they handled the GNOC crises.

 

The letter reads:

Your Excellency, it is with a deep sense of remorse and sincere regrets that I write on my own behalf and indeed on behalf of both sides of parliament to convey our unreserved apologies to Your Excellency, the president of the Republic and leader of the APRC party.

 

We sincerely regret that our cause of action and the way and manner we handled the GNOC/National Assembly Select Committee on Youth and Sports Report, is a cause of concern and regret to Your Excellency. This was not and can never be our object; for we consider ourselves your greatest constituency in the Republic.

 

As Speaker, I am once again assuring Your Excellency of the sincere and legitimate goodwill and goals of parliament. We thank you for telling us your mind as our leader and president.

 

In addition, we renew our allegiance to Your Excellency, Your government and party and also renew our request that Your Excellency grant us audience. Once again, please Your Excellency accepts our sincere and unreserved apologies on this occasion.

 

Thank you.

 

Honorable Abdoulie Bojang

 

The UNDP office in Banjul appears to be spearheading much of the country’s developmental efforts especially in sectors like the Judiciary. Last week Wednesday it organized and funded a two-day seminar on prison reform, held at the Kairaba Beach Hotel.

 

The purpose of the seminar is to come up with a plan of action with recommendation on how to improve the current prison system. Speaking on the occasion, Justice Mama Fatima Singhateh, a High Court judge and coordinator of the program, thanked the UNDP for their support to the Judiciary for the past two years. She indicated that the development of a plan of action on prison reform is an activity under Judiciary's project, adding that they felt that there is a need as a key arm of government to consider how to improve the prison services, since they are the institution that sentence offenders and criminals.

 

She also said that the purpose of the seminar is not only to review the document but also to come up with comments, proposals and recommendation in addressing the current gaps within the prison system, with a view to structurally and institutionally improve on it.

 

In his keynote address, Nigerian born contract chief justice of The Gambia, Justice Emmanuel Agim, said the role of the Judiciary is paramount in justice delivery. He commended the consultant, Ida Drammeh, a senior legal practitioner for preparing a comprehensive and informative report on plan of action for prison reform. He challenged the prison officers to work diligently in executing their duties, adding that they must follow the prison regulatory in order to treat the inmates as their fellow human beings. He further reminded them that they have a responsibility to serve as public officers.

 

Chief Justice Agim pointed out that treating prisoners humanly is a responsibility and a duty and not a favor. He urged the prison officers to do justice in executing their duties, adding that the government of The Gambia's objective for justice must not be violated. What hypocrisy. Agim knows fully well that government has no such objective and that prison officers do not have any intention therefore of refraining from violating rights of prisoners. Was it not revealed in court last year that the commissioner of Prisons, few years ago fed prisoners with the carcass of a bull leading to the death of several prisoners. Was any investigative commission set up to look into that matter? 

Gambian prisons are filthy and congested with the authorities concerned having no ideas about making the institution a correctional one.  It is seen as a punitive institution. Corruption is rampant among prison officers and lots of cannabis and drugs are smuggled and peddled inside the confines of the main central Mile Two Prisons. Not far from there is a small but luxurious motel run by late hotelier Briit Wadner’s daughter, Conny,  where influential prisoners spend the nights. When they like, as shown in the case against former Police Inspector General Ensa Badjie, prisoners are freed over night to gang up with the police to organize nocturnal robberies in town. Oh, for sure the prison system needs a total overhaul but are the authorities ready for such?

 

Also last week Wednesday, 2nd February, an Indian businessman residing in The Gambia Mahesh D Bhojwani, was dragged to a court before Acting Principal Magistrate Sherrif B Tabally of the Kanifing Magistrates Court, charged with prohibition of conduct conducive to the breach of peace contrary to Section 9 of the Public Order Act.

 

According to the particulars of offence, on 29th January 2011, along Sayerr Jobe Avenue, while in a public place, Mahesh D Bhojwani used abusive words at one Isatou Singhateh, saying that Gambians are lazy black monkeys, a manner likely to cause a breach of peace. He pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The particulars of the case are that Mr. Bhojwani, who runs a shop near Bartez on Sayerr jobe Avenue, was at work on Saturday the 29th January. As it was the last Saturday for that month, it was a public cleansing day when no shop or business is allowed to open between 9.Am in the morning to 13.00 in the afternoon. The shopkeepers, as other citizens and residents, are expected to be out in the streets cleaning, according to a decree pronounced by Gambian dictator, Yahya Jammeh, when he wanted to preempt a demonstration planned about five years ago to commemorate the killings of over a dozen people in a peaceful student demonstration.  Many shops just close for the whole day but some enterprising shopkeepers open right after the 13.00 time. The Indian shopkeeper went to the shop that day but could not find his Gambian employee, Khadijatou Singhateh, did not turn up as expected. Bhojwani called the employee’s sister, Isatou to find out what happened. It was when came over to the shop to explain that her sister was cooking that all hell broke loose. 

 

 

 Asked by police prosecutor Inspector Mballlow to explain the reaction of the accused, Isatou said she explained to the accused the reasons why Kaddijatou was not at work. "The accused then responded saying that this is unfair. Why should I come to work and Kaddijatou did not. This is why I hate Gambians because all Gambians are lazy black monkeys," she revealed.

 

The witness told the court that she did not reply to the accused person's nasty words, adding that she told him she would have reacted if not for the respect she had for him. She said the accused then said: "I don't care anybody but money. If you like you can report the matter to the stupid president even." She explained that the accused then pulled out D10.00 from his drawer and wanted to give her but she knocked his hand and the money fell down. She added that a drunken man who was passing by picked up the D10.00. "I then retrieved the D10.00 from the drunken man and throw the money back to the accused," she told the court.

 

Isatou further informed the court that while she was taking her breakfast at her work place last Monday, a man came to her and informed her that he has came to arrest her. "I asked the man why, who I later knew to be an NIA officer. The NIA officer told me that on 29th   January 2011, I quarreled with an Indian man and the Indian insulted the president after which I did not report the matter to any place," she stated. You get that? What insanity! Tyranny is madness man. Mr. Bhojwani, probably of Brahmin origin typifies the average Indian middleclass man, steeped in the depths of money-mindedness and born and brought up in class, clan and racial prejudices, has little humanism left in him. There are many such Indians investing in small shops filled with household goods from Dubai in the country and many of them have the Bhojwani outlook. But, come to think of it, he may have a point about the average Gambian attitude to work. We love employment but hate to work, many of us.

Bye for this time.