BABILIMANSA; THE VENGEFUL EGOMANIAC

Back in 2009 at the launching of the Q-Cell head office on Kairaba, sitting in the audience I can still clearly recall getting angry and barely being able to contain that anger when I heard Yaya say something along these line;

“When I say that the sky is the limit for the Gambians, I mean it. I must add that if you get to within a few meters of the sky, wait for me to get there first since I am your president.”

“This is a beautiful building; I challenge Muhammed Jah to build a similar one in Medina (Niumi). Come to Kanilai next year, there will be an even taller building.” These statements of course are paraphrased, meaning the words did not flow in that exact sequence but the meaning has not been lost even after all these years.

I was not at the launch of Q-City but I bet similar sentiments were not expressed in that the president did not see himself as being in competition with industrious citizens whose entrepreneurial skills have paid off.

Why am I making this frame of reference? Having seen very recent pictures and videos on social media presenting Banjul and the sorry state it is in; another aspect of Yaya’s vengeful nature is exposed yet again. Yaya is typifies the classic egomaniac, but more than that he has been consumed by hate and jealousy for most if not all of his life. Here was a man whose ultimate goal for seizing power was to unleash misery and suffering on innocent people because he blamed society at large for his humble beginnings and the misfortunes that such a life wrought. Remember his attitude towards former officials of the PPP government; the continuous reference to their “flamboyant lifestyle” and how they beat their chest accompanied by “do you know who I am” scenarios he referenced? That was the hate in him speaking and henceforth his mission was; I go show them peppeh! Sadly, “them” became every Gambian he viewed as a threat to his primitive mode of consumption. “When they were practicing their dirimo-cracy you benefitted and now you want to challenge ME?” That right there embodies Yaya’s whole outlook on opposition and dissent. To the Banjulians he said “now it is time for you to taste what the rest of us have been enduring our entire lives.”

This attitude also, in part explains the neglect of Banjul. You see, Yaya may be primitive, but he is shrewd. Yaya knew very well that Banjul, or at least Banjulians benefitted the most under Sir Dawda; remember he was close to that seat of power and was very abreast with the comings and goings within the corridors of power. He will sweet talk the capital into aligning with him but in his mind he was plotting to take everything away from them, unless some direct benefit was in it for him. We dare even go a little further and claim that the roads he built were partly a political bait but partly because he needed to travel on them. That may be a stretch but by now we have wizened up to know that we should never put anything past him as being incapable of. Look at the Arch, a monument he dedicated to himself and only he drove under it for the longest time. 

An egotist like Yaya likes to bask in his own perceived grandeur; just take a closer look at his lifestyle and choices of material objects. I bet he drives on those roads, have those street lights shone on him and thinks to himself, "wow I definitely made it." Those items all served as reminders to him, who he was before July 22, 1994 and who he became. “Dekka bi maako morm” sums it all up for us. When he inaugurated those street lights he claimed them to be his and categorically stated that any driver who accidentally veers into one of them will pay for it. Even his investments in Kanilai were just for him, he enjoyed having people grovel at this feet and having the power to either give them or turn them away. Yaya’s whole attitude was to thump his chest and say “I am the guy.” And since no one else can claim such or be seen to be of similar status as him, his colleague council members had to be eliminated, humiliated, or rendered irrelevant, all hail Yaya the mighty Babilimansa!

So those claiming that “this is how Yaya started and became a dictator”; in reference to President Barrow, take a closer look and you will see that from the get go, Yaya was never well meaning or well intent. Yaya was a vengeful egomaniacal tyrant. Ask those who knew him from childhood and through his adult life and you’ll see a man full of himself. Even in the Gendarmerie, his mates will tell you he took pleasure in “punishing” arrestees which included beatings; the man likes to exert authority and likes being on top.

Seeing folks trying to paint a saintly picture of benevolence go to show how misunderstood Yaya the man was, he is a case study for psychologists. Or are such attempts at drawing similitudes with President Barrow out of insincerity and selfishness? I am not saying President Barrow is perfect, incorruptible or beyond reproach, but going so far as saying there is no difference between him and Yaya is a manifestation of ignorance as to who Yaya really was, or that one does know who Yaya was but out of some personal motive tries to make comparisons where none exists.

With an independent city council about to emerge, the Mayoress will have all of the tax money collected in Banjul used to give a face lift to the city and hopefully with a generous augmentation from the central government.

This was just a simple reminder, a dedication lest we forget! We will NEVER forget.

LOSING OURSELVES

For colonialism to succeed, the invaders must adopt an air of superiority and cast native ways as inferior in every aspect. All colonizers share that characteristic. They will represent themselves with their best attributes and highlight the seemingly worst and often misunderstood ways of the natives interpreted to suit a negative narrative and conclude that in fact the natives are inferior. That skewed logic is the “evidence of history” that unfortunately our very own “intellectuals” buy into; consequently every prescription they proffer is the proverbial ‘garbage in (flawed evidence), garbage out (proposed solutions to our “problems”)’. That is one explanation of why we are in this seemingly unending cycle of stagnation in terms of development, both human and capital.

The sad truth is that the narrative, sustained over the past many centuries has had an effect on us as a colonized people; the inferiority complex. We have come to believe that in fact we are as our oppressors have labeled us, that in fact we are less. “See how advanced their societies are and how backward we are; see how democratic and open their societies are and how intolerant ours are,” etc. etc. that our backward culture is to blame for our lack of ‘advancement. The purveyors of the narrative that we need to do things exactly like our former colonizers are doing are those we view as “intellectuals”. Steve Biko once said that “the greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” That reality is what we are living today. Those we view as educated or intellectuals for a large part have had their minds ‘programmed’ by those very colonizers and that most potent weapon; their minds, have been unleashed on us to further enhance the colonial narrative.

Suddenly, completely ignorant folks, with no insight whatsoever as to how our societies are shaped or molded together are the self-appointed experts on what the problems of our society are, and what the remedy should be. Diagnosis; tribalism and backward culture! Prescription; loyalty to the nation state and shunning African culture! To them the wise and experienced elders can take a nap because they do not know how ‘democracy’ works. Like hell they don’t! You (the more knowledgeable than his elders) are the ignorant ones but too proud to admit it since you are confusing western consumerism with democracy. Without realizing it, their prescription is for a misdiagnosed ailment and it is only going to rip our societies apart and in the process advancing the course of those who, centuries ago held us in bondage and kept our minds captive. The irony is that they claim to be pan Africanists. But just like a well programmed machine, they will say that “we are proponents of democracy and human rights advocates”; which implies our ways were neither democratic nor advanced human rights – the colonial premise. What in fact most of these so called human rights activists and champions of democracy are promoting is westernization which is not the same as democracy.

On the other side of the narrative are the masses, a large portion of who view fluency in the language of the colonizer as equivalent to knowledge. We listen to anyone who can articulate their points well and often fall short of questioning their logic or reasoning. In our case, speak English well and you’re ‘the guy’. That fluency masks the ignorance within. Even on religious knowledge and matters of faith, the unassuming Faa Nyonkoling may only know Fatiha and the last three Surahs of the Qur’an, but his entire life is the perfect representation of the character of a true Muslim; he is honest, he is sincere, he is modest, he is content, he is generous with his meager resources, he is patient with hardship, does not talk about people’s shortcomings, keeps confidence and is always admonishing good conduct, hard work, truthfulness and empathy. Yet, in the eyes of the villagers of Wasabali Kunda, Faa Nyonkoling is a simpleton who has nothing to offer other than outdated traditions. The go-to guy is Alhaji Abdul Malick just returned from Arabia and speaks with every fifth word being an Arabic word; now he is the true Muslim. Instead of admitting his lack of knowledge in Islam, he will use his Arabic literacy to mislead people as long as the respect and attention such fluency accords him keeps coming. The same applies to our social media loudmouths. Neither disciplined nor informed but the ‘boldness’ to speak up and articulately so has earned them followers and so they march on spewing garbage in their wake.

Now this is by no means an attempt at generalizing, but in fact it is an attempt at highlighting instances of such manifestations of inferiority complex. The wealth of knowledge in our modest and unassuming elders is such a treasure throve that it will take real intellectual skills to decipher them in relation to the context such knowledge was acquired; but out of intellectual laziness or a predisposition to consume everything from the colonial masters as gospel, so we just prefer them over our “oral traditions.” Like much else, we just want ready-made stuff, and like every ready-made item, unverified knowledge is poisonous and worse; subjugating and misleading. The only remedy to that has been captured many a time before; “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery….” so says Bob Marley. “Who taught you to hate yourself?” inquired Malcolm!

In their attempt to subjugate us, the colonialists made it a duty to devalue and eventually eradicate our belief systems, our culture, values, customs, traditions and the last frontier is language! Start small, end big if you like. Culture can be manifested in many ways but language is the total embodiment of a people’s culture. How many of us can express ourselves in our native languages without injecting some European or Arabic word? Now imagine a generation or two from now and the challenges they will face in understanding our culture. We have set course on a trajectory that can only end in tragedy for our people as a collective, but are insisting that we are doing the most good.

How often do you hear that Africa’s problem is tribalism; in the ‘New Gambia’ of course it is the choicest topic of discussion; yet if people are asked to point out such cases of tribalism they fall short of giving any convincing answers; what do we promote in its stead; nationalism. In the greater drive for a unified Africa what is more an impediment, tribe or nation state? The nation state needless to say has a foreign design to it. The partitioning of Africa to suit various Western interests never took into account existing norms and institutions. Attacking any aspect of what is left of our culture without looking inward for substitutes is playing right into furthering that colonial narrative. Being proud of and upholding one’s culture is not synonymous with being unpatriotic, in fact it is a collective of such cultures within certain geographic regions that makes up a country. Try to ‘assimilate’ all into one melting pot and you are sure to kill off some.

Show me an intolerant Gambian and you have an uncultured individual. Our society is unique and worth being proud of. Thousands of years of culture and traditions of peaceful coexistence and intermingling of people of different customs and value systems required an intricate and delicate system to maintain; our forebears did it with no outside ‘help’, but that legacy is under threat from none other than copycat wannabes who falsely project an image of intellectually sound individuals, when in fact they are as ignorant as a toddler when it comes to their knowledge of how such an intricate system of peaceful coexistence was woven and maintained. Our task is to challenge them, and it is simple. Understand and celebrate who you are and embrace your neighbor; that’s all it takes!