The former Special Adviser,
Media and Publicity to the government Reuben Abati shares his thought on the
Gambia saga.
I have very vivid memories
of my last visit to The Gambia. This was in 2013 when President Goodluck
Jonathan paid a two-day visit to the country.
We were quartered at a very
nice, hospitable sea-side hotel, the Coco Ocean Resort. One of the first things
I noticed was the large population of female tourists, lounging by the
pool-side and the sea-side, with biceps-wielding, six-packs-flaunting young
dark-skinned men on the prowl, with gigolo-ish gait and mien.
A female member of our
entourage who had gone to the restaurant alone, later returned - visibly shaken
and alarmed and what was her problem: one of the male ushers in the hotel had
asked her if she would need a man to keep her company so she could have a real
taste of Gambian hospitality.
We laughed over it later,
but you could not but wonder whether this was one of the reasons why The Gambia
holds a special attraction for middle-aged ladies from Europe. There was no time to conduct further research
into that aspect of our encounter with The Gambia. I was far too busy for that.
But there was no doubt that The Gambia under President Yahya Jammeh took the
country’s tourism endowments seriously: a beautiful seaside, good weather, low
crime rate, good hotels, beautiful women, adventurous young men, and a meek
populace.
President Yahya Jammeh was
determined to give President Jonathan and his delegation a good reception. From the airport to the hotel, you would
think a festival was afoot. A public holiday was declared and our visit was
aired live on radio and television. When we got to the hotel, President
Jonathan’s vehicle was immediately serenaded by a cavalcade of horse-riders and
a full band of drummers, singers and bag-pipers in colourful costume.
They led our convoy to the
Presidential suite, where security had been heavily deployed in fitting
recognition of the importance of the visitor.
President Jammeh like virtually every other West African President took
a special liking to President Jonathan- the only one who was aloof and liked to
act like the father of everyone was that one in Cameroon, although I must say
when we went there for a security summit, he received us excellently well too.
We felt very much at home
in The Gambia. We were kept in rooms that were a bit far away from the
President. And whenever that happened, the aides were always excited. It meant
we could have a little more freedom away from the searching eyes of the
security people around the President. And those ones, I will tell their story
someday because they were fond of disturbing other matters of state and
personal interest by suddenly interrupting with calls: “Oga dey call you, Oga
says you must come now, now” only to get to the big man and he tells you, “No,
I didn’t ask after you.” By the time you hang around for a while, just in case
the big man would change his mind, whatever plan you were pursuing would have
been aborted, or seeing you, the boss would find an assignment for you or drag
you into a meeting. Angry, deflated, you
went to the security man who made the phone call: “But you said Oga sent for
me.” Those guys always managed a poker face: “But you know it is always good to
stay around Oga in case he needs you.”
I was impressed by Jammeh’s
hospitality and respectful disposition towards President Jonathan. I recall
that in 2012, when President Jammeh tried to succeed President Jonathan as
Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority, his own colleagues, including President
Jonathan, opposed him. He rarely attended ECOWAS meetings. His then Vice
President, the motherly, regal and polite Isatou Njie-Saidy always occupied The
Gambian seat. But he usually showed up
when a new Chairman was to be elected.
Seniority is something that is taken seriously within the club of African
Presidents.
They refer to themselves as
“my brother, my brother”, but they are always very mindful of seniority and
that is one of the reasons why the likes of Paul Biya, Robert Mugabe, Yoweri
Museveni, Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo behave and speak as if they are God in human
form. Each time Jammeh wanted the ECOWAS Chairmanship position, he behaved as
if it was his birthright, but in 2012, and again in 2014, he was bypassed for
junior Presidents as had been the case since he first expressed interest in the
position in 2001. He was the only long-serving President who was never allowed
to chair ECOWAS. He must have been aware
of President Jonathan and Nigeria’s stand on the question of his Chairmanship,
but he never held it against both. In fact, Nigeria and Nigerians were so
influential in The Gambia under Jammeh, ordinary Gambians complained openly
about the overwhelming influence of Nigerians in their country.
Everything went well during
our state visit until it was time to meet with President Jammeh in the State
House. It was part of my duty to introduce the Nigerian President’s delegation,
except someone else seized the microphone and I stepped down. In The Gambia, mere protocol recognition of
the President of the country ended up being a major problem. His full titles
had to be mentioned, and in a correct order in order not to upset him.
The pre-meeting briefing by
my Gambian counterpart dwelt too heavily on the titles: His Excellency, Sheik
Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Abdul-Aziz Awal Jemus Junkung (AJJ) Jammeh Nassiru
Deen Babili Mansa, President of the Republic of The Gambia. It was something like that. The security
guards were also rough and menacing. Security men often do not understand the
language of diplomacy. We went to many countries where we were treated roughly
and our own security men often threatened to retaliate if the affected country
ever visited Nigeria. I don’t think we
ever got a chance to retaliate because our protocol system proved to be more
orderly.
The State House in The
Gambia when we eventually went in, however, was quite modest. It looked like the guest house section of Aso
Villa. The meetings went well too. And Jammeh, to my surprise, spoke very well.
He didn’t sound like the fool he was portrayed to be in the Western press. He
was articulate, debonair, well-composed and mentally sharp. I guess these are
required qualities for dictatorship and crookedness. And I admired Jammeh. He
is afterall, my age-mate. He sat there, in his royalty, running a country, and
I was there, switching between a microphone and a notebook, documenting his
history. But something else happened
that gave a true picture of Jammeh’s Gambia.
Our official photographer,
Callistus Ewelike (he took over from Kola Osiyemi– God bless his soul) had
issues with Jammeh’s security men. Security men at State Houses around the world
are unfriendly towards journalists. They seek to control access. They consider
journalists busybodies, looking for negative news.
Accreditation and the use
of tags should ordinarily take care of this, still, the security people just
prefer to misbehave, and I witnessed that even in the United States where we
were treated as if the visiting media was a team of terrorists. There was no
violence in the US, but in The Gambia, they seized Callistus Ewelike’s camera
and smashed it. Callistus is an aggressive, stubborn photo-journalist. He would
fight if you try to stop him from doing his job.
He was a staff of the News
Agency of Nigeria (NAN) handed over to me by Ima Niboro when Kola took ill.
Callistus must have resisted the Gambia goons, claiming his right as President
Jonathan’s Official Photographer. In The Gambia under Jammeh, the President and
the security agencies ruled as if there would be no tomorrow.
They trampled on everyone
else’s rights. Anyone who tried to act like a free man was brutalised and
dumped in prison. For 22 years, Jammeh
sat on his country and his people with the help of marabouts and security
enforcers. He kissed the Koran everyday, but he did not act according to its
dictates. He wore a trademark white garment, but his true garment was of a
black colour from the kingdom of Satan.
Ewelike’s travails
eventually became a full-fledged story on the second day of our visit when
President Jammeh’s spokesperson and the rest of his media team started looking
for me at the Coco Resort. We were to be treated to a luncheon before
departure. The luncheon had started but I got cornered. Jammeh’s spokesman
brought a brand new camera to replace the one the Gambian security people had
destroyed.
Callistus was with me. The
Gambians apologized. Apology was taken and accepted. They said they didn’t want
the two Presidents to hear about the incident. I gave them my word that I would
not mention it to President Jonathan. Then, they pleaded that we should accept
the replacement camera they brought.
I told them not to bother -
as far as we were concerned, whatever happened was occupational hazard and
Nigeria would replace its own damaged equipment. I looked at Callistus. He was
eyeing the new camera greedily. At a
point, he called me aside and whispered: “Oga, this camera they are giving us
is better than the one they smashed oh. This one na better camera. Oga, abi
make we take am?”
I stood my ground. I also
consulted Ambassadors Hassan Tukur and Daniel Hart who said accepting a replacement
would amount to a diplomatic tit-for-tat. I thanked The Gambians for their good
sense and assured them that we were fine with the photographic coverage of the
visit so far, despite the damaged camera. I always had a back-up photographer
and cameraman, in any case.
That encounter was a
blessing in disguise. It saved me from the first course at the Presidential
luncheon, which had started while we were outside the hall discussing the
damaged camera. When we got back to Nigeria, close to eight persons on the
Presidential delegation ended up in hospital due to food poisoning! They all
took that first course. Nobody died but somehow the information got back to The
Gambia and the chef was arrested and charged to court. Jammeh’s rulership of
The Gambia was jinxed in many ways.
The biggest jinx was his
volte-face over the last Presidential election. Gambians deserve a new place in
the sun and a new Gambia. But so much depends on new President Adama Barrow. He
should look beyond the past and face the future. If he spends his time facing
the past, he will disappoint his people and exhaust the enormous goodwill that
has brought him to power.
By Reuben Abati
By Reuben Abati
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