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Letter: Anonymous writer appeals to President Jammeh
Thursday, 06 May 2010 09:28
Amidst strong revelation of abuse of powerThe Arrest Case of Aji Mbahey Ndure of Lancaster Street, Banjul. Urgent Appeal for H.E. President Professor Doctor Jammeh to Release a Defenseless and Innocent Old Lady
As a concerned citizen and someone with first-hand knowledge of the sequence of events that led to the arrest, detention and the eventual charge of arson of Aji Mbahey Ndure, I wish to plead with H.E. President Professor Doctor Jammeh to kindly intervene and release an innocent and law-abiding old citizen.
On Thursday 15th of April 2010, Aji Mbahey went to Denton Bridge mangrove swamps to check on firewood she had gathered weeks previously but couldn’t carry back to her home due to an unplanned and abrupt visit she had to make to the provinces with her sister, Merry Njie and Mary’s husband who has been tasked with chairing the country’s 45th Independent anniversary in the provinces. On her return to Banjul, she heard that fire had broken out at Denton Bridge mangrove swamp. Concerned for her farming area and firewood she fetched and gathered, she decided to go and take a look at the first opportunity.
Aji Mbahey has a long connection with the Denton Bridge area going back to the 1970s when she sold food to workers at the then Sarro GPMB oil factory in the mornings and afternoons and then worked on cultivating vegetable and rice on the near-by swamp in the evenings. It’s this tradition that she had continued doing without any problem until the unfortunate event of April 15th.
Aji Mbahey is a hard-working and upright lady who believes in the old-fashioned tradition of living off and by one’s sweat, literally. And it would therefore be simply beyond credulity for her to endanger that very livelihood by deliberately or otherwise setting fire to the swamp. It is also worth repeating that she was simply not capable of starting a fire when she was physically not even in the Banjul and/or the Kombo when the alleged arson attack took place.
As stated earlier, she came from the provinces and learnt of the fire at Denton Bridge and naturally as someone who has been cultivating on that land for decades, she was concerned and decided to go and look for the firewood she gathered there before. On her arrival, she saw a group of men cooking meat in a large cooking pot over an open fire. She later learnt that they were mostly employees of the State House who had minutes earlier sacrificed a bull for and on behalf of The President and were cooking some of that meat. She exchanged pleasantries with them and continued to walk towards her plot.
To her utter disbelief she immediately noticed that the firewood she had laboriously collected a few weeks earlier was what the men were cooking with. She turned back and politely asked why they thought it right and proper to use firewood that had obviously been collected by someone else without consent and or permission.
One of the gentlemen offered an apology and promised that she would be compensated. However, and for some inexplicable reason, another of the men took exception to this and started hurling all manners of abusive and threatening language at a defenseless old lady. He continued to make it clear to Aji Mbahey in no uncertain terms that he (and perhaps by extension the government) have the power and wherewithal to not only use her firewood but more than that, he could go to her house and take whatever he likes; and no one would be able to do absolutely anything about it. Aji Mbahey told the guy she doubted even the president would do such a thing as the Gambia has laws and the president is neither a horrible nor a disrespectful person, especially not to women old enough to be his mother.
Aji Mbahey walked away and continued to gather the remainder of her firewood and placed them in a neat heap. On completion, she started walking back towards the road with the aim of heading back home. As she passed the men, she was offered some of cooked beef; whether in good faith or as another means of rubbing her face in their despicable act. True to her nature, she rose above the bait, rejected the offer, but thanked them all the same for the gesture.
This simple act of saying, no, but thanks, seemed to have induced some sort of conniption in the same guy who earlier threatened her, for he almost immediately again started hauling insults. But worst he started accusing her of being the arsonist who started the fire in order to collect firewood at a later date or must have an idea of the person who set the area on fire.
As anyone who finds themselves in her particular predicament and situation, she thought that was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. However on realisation that the man and some of his colleagues were actually serious, she told them she would never do such a thing as she supplements the little money she gets form her kids and family by farming seasonal crops and vegetables in that very swamp. This reasonable explanation didn’t seem to make any difference to the men, and to say the old woman was terrified at this stage would be putting it mildly. She was then lead away to one of the men’s cars and driven to the Banjul Police station where she was detained incommunicado for two weeks.
This was not simply a procedural confusion by our men allegedly in the service of the head of state of our country but rather a deliberate and outright abuse of power. Had the totally unnecessary abuse of power ended here, one could perhaps rejoice, albeit tampered with understandable anger that the powers that be had come to their senses and realised their error of their judgments… But no, that seemed to just have been a taster of worse to come: On Wednesday the 26th of April this poor defenseless, old lady was charged with arson based on nothing more than the fact that a few men think they can do as they wish in our country and no one, no matter how old and defenseless is safe from their almost neurotic need to show who has power and who is powerless and defenseless in The Gambia of present! This is a perfect example of misfeasance at its worst.
On my behalf and on behalf of Aji Mbahey’s children and her extended family, I wish to appeal to H.E. President Jammeh to request an urgent investigation into this evident case of abuse of power and get this old lady released and free to look after her grand children and tend to her vegetable plot at Denton Bridge. Her unlawful arrest and detention has not been only traumatic to her, but it has been one of the most disheartening and heart-wrenching experiences for her extended family both in the Gambia and the Diaspora.
Should it be deemed necessary, H.E. the president could employ the vast resources at his disposal to seek character references for Aji Mbahey from the likes of The Lord Mayor of Banjul, Mr. Samba Faal and Mr Jatto Sillah the Minister of Forestry and Environment, to name but a few. She is an old lady of exemplary and outstanding character and she does not deserve the maltreatment being meted out to her.
I hope in the name of Allah (Azzawajall), whom we all worship, you will exercise with the powers conferred upon you to order for her immediate and unconditional release.
Thank you for your consideration.
A concerned citizen of The Gambian
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Comments
The words of the woman herself - who feels it know it.
When such impersonators who tend to act in the "name of the government" are arrested or prosecuted, the same voices here will be shouting the same slogans. Funny, isn't it? Which way do you really want it?
The lady in question has been reported 'freed' on yaya's orders by a sisterly media house. Well done for all your efforts in seeing that the right thing is done & especially for sanity to return to state of affairs in our dear motherland. Unfortunately this is the madness Gambians found ourselves in for our 'naivety', no offence intended, for accepting the murderer & his murderous bunch to impose himself on us in name of ‘change’. Now we have got the ‘change’ but we all know in what form. I commend your spirits. Keep it up & forward we shall always continue to march to see the back of the MURDERER.
ThanX
We know that in most countries where civil strife erupted,it had been bubbling under the surface for a long time and no one can say that the situation in Gambia today is not similar.For over a decade and half the population has endured unspeakably callous and brutal thuggery and there seems to be no end in sight.
The outbursts against Rights Defenders are the same,the hire/fire instinct is on auto pilot not to mention the permeating paranoia of coup plots.Is this really the way to run a country?
It is either Yaya Jammeh is in control of the affairs in Gambia or he is not. If the latter is correct he should let things go. Ppl cant be victimising others simply because they share difference in views...
SisterGambia,
I bet you Jammeh knows about many of these thugish attutide that goes around him. He encourages it by rewarding them, which explains why the continue on it. Jammeh only appear to shune things like these when he fall out poeple who choose to defy him later. Take for example ex-IGP Jammeh. how many times have we heard reports about his involvement in drug dealing, or using the terms Oga or Big Man to terrorise Gambians? Wit all that Jammeh appointed him as head of the police? And when he fall out wit him he started mentioning things like this. Does Yahya Jammeh think Gambians are fool?
To the author, you are better off appealing to any other entity besides the two people you named above. Nobody around Yaya tells him the truth.
These people think Political power is all about force and the law is just a door mat to be stepped on..... what a shame
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