Why Did Barack Obama Invite Gambia Dictator, Yahya Jammeh to U.S-Africa Summit

First Lady Zainab Zuma Jammeh is once again coaxing her husband to fill her purse with taxpayer’s money to allow her buy expensive dress. She does not want to be left out in the U.S-Africa summit in Washington DC, White House next month. Is this not another slap on the face of Gambian activists? They will come close to puking upon reading this editorial.

After returning from the U.N General Assembly meeting in the U.S. last year, President Yahya Jammeh went berserk like a mad dog, barking at “U.S. and Britain for aiding and helping those attempting to overthrow” his government. He even unilaterally pulled out the Gambia from the Commonwealth of Nations. What more could be hurting him than being reduced to a pussy cat by Gambian activists in New York? That hostile reception should have been a rude wakening for him but dictators only learn to accept the reality when the fall completely.

Defeated and dumbfounded, the wounded leader flew home only to open the gate of hell for the United Democratic Party Treasurer Amadou Sanneh who was physically and violently assaulted for an unrelated case. President Jammeh surrendered Sanneh and co. to his heartless dogs (torturers) to simply massage the already battered and bruised ego of the leader who compares himself to no mortal being, Remember he once bragged of talking to God.

Jammeh is in the habit of intoxicating his civil servants with his grievances. All of them, including the currently detained Secretary General, Momodou Sabally, have mastered the art of unleashing venom on anything Jammeh hates. History repeated itself again when Sabally scolded the United States and Great Britain for siding with the Gambian opposition and dissident groups. He didn’t stop there but went ahead to accuse the main opposition UDP of being infested with unpatriotic Mandinka speaking people. No wonder why Sabally today finds himself in the NIA cell with no one raising an eyebrow.

The much touted U.S/Africa summit to be hosted by President Barrack Obama put Gambian leader on the‘White House African Heads of State Invitee List watch’. Africans, more so Gambians, have been on the look out, wondering whether the ineffective Obama government will leave out psychotic African tyrants and oppressors. Lo and behold, the Point newspaper’s story indeed confirmed that our own attention seeking mad and evil human rights abuser too is not only gracing the occasion but also billed to wine and dine with first Lady Zainab Zuma Jammeh in the heartland of western capitalist capital, Washington DC.

The lingering question therefore becomes: is Obama government ignoring all the crazy antics of President Jammeh or is not well informed about the extent of tyranny exhibited by men like Yahya Jammeh, despite having two American citizens – Alhagie Ceesay and Ebou Jobe – kidnapped and held incommunicado by the Jammeh regime?

In any case, it is a matter of wait and see whether president Jammeh will honour the White House invitation from the country he and his wife cannot do without. If President Jammeh accepts the invitation and attend the Summit, then his words mean absolutely nothing to him. We will then point daggers at him and trumpet his hypocrisy and appetite for lying all over his ugly face. On the other hand, his refusal to show up in Washington D.C. could depict his cowardice.

UDP Amadou Sanneh is unlawfully imprisoned by the run away former Judge Emanuel Nkea, serving nonsensical long prison sentence on flimsy and cooked up charges, Momodou Sabally has now drowned in his own mess, the late Buba Baldeh’s copse was denied burial, and all crimes against Gambians remain unsolved, political prisoners put in chains, with the dictatorship firmly in-grip of power, yet the Obama administration saw the need to invite such a lunatic is beyond baffling. All these are indications that it will be Gambians who will sort Yahya Jammeh out, not foreign governments.

Ends