09/08/2025
Resisting the Yahya Jammeh Agenda: Selling the Yahya Jammeh agenda is an offensive, disproportionate, preposterous and dangerous undertaking. A victim’s Rebuttal.
By Salifu Manneh.
In my view, Yahya had all the manifestations of an acute psychotic state. He was delusional, paranoid and grandiose hence his non-hesitance to go after every person or groups of people he did not trust, finish them off at all costs without showing any remorse. We will never know the exact number of people who lost their lives, traumatised and displaced socially, emotionally and psychologically from the brutal and dictatorship regime of Yahya Jammeh. He was callous and brutal. He treated his opponents disrespectfully and without any humility at all. He surrounded himself with killer human machines; the junglers, a propaganda wing called the green boys-what colours are these boys these days?
Remember all of his thieving, accumulation of wealth, (Janneh Commission) harassments, alleged killings and the mafia style in running our country was not done singlehandedly. Yahya was aided and abetted by Gambians and non-Gambians. People with conscience should be ashamed of selling the Yahya agenda. After all, he had his chances, used and abused a lot of his chances and wants us to remember him, respect him as an honourable man, no way. It’s absurd. It’s ridiculous. It’s unfair. It’s nonsensical. It’s shameful.
Yahya was consumed and taken away by fame he never expected, too much wealth he had never dreamt of, power that got into his head irrationally and it was the same insatiable appetite for power that made him powerless, toothless and stateless at the minute.
Yahya’s era was a nightmare and to encourage people to relive that nightmare by selling his agenda in my view tantamount to nothing short of insensitivity, ridiculous and irresponsible behaviour. For those people he tortured, killed, maimed, brutalised, strangulated, and suffocated, (TRRC report) talking about these things in a non-treatment/ therapeutic environment can feel very distressing.
Yahya and his revolutionary ideas came ceremoniously with jubilation and a lot of people both home and abroad felt his coming was long overdue, but the end was bitter, unceremonious and humiliating. His grip on power has long gone. We as a nation never had time at all to process fully well how Yahya descended on our political scene uninvited; what his coming meant for the country and how all this massive and unprecedented change would come to affect our lives for ever. Victims of his barbaric regime will never have a closure unless and until Yahya came to an open and transparent space; take an oath, prosecuted and given a fair trial, apologise for his wrongs and shortcomings, victims compensated financially, treated psychologically and physically.
Yaya’s claim that he could treat Aids did a lot of damage to our country. Many Aids patients lost their lives as a result of Yahya’s reckless and irresponsible behaviours. Giving people the hope that he could cure Aids was a troubling state of both mental and physical states. It was a big false and his treatment centre can only be described as a centre of an abuse of power, physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse and irresponsible governance. Donors withdrew a lot of support for the treatment of the AIDS population in our country once it became clear that our mentally derailed president, Yahya had made unsupported claims that he was a healer. It was a hoax, false and dehumanising attempt by Yahya.
We must not forget also that Yahya enriched himself through the treatment centre. Being a patient under his care was a traumatic experience for most people. How do we engage with these ex-patients who may still be alive or dead and ask them about their experiences and offer them psychological support if needed? Are they victims who should be included in any compensation scheme that may be proposed for reconciliation purposes?
Yahya would long be remembered as the self-proclaimed leader whose delusional beliefs led him to announce that he would rule the country for a billion years on his unfaithful day; he was made to abandon state house and the country in a hurry. Many Gambians profited from the chaos nature of his departure and until today may be sat on a lot of wealth and resources that belonged to the state. The looted and the loot exchanged a few hands and enriched many people on the sides. We would never know the real wealth the country lost through dictatorship. How many citizens went on exile due to dictatorship?
Talking about a Yahya Jammeh come back is unrealistic and an ill-advised conversation. Good though to engage in conversations that promote reflections about our common understanding, common good and community togetherness. Every victim of the Jammeh regime must be given full respect and the compensation they deserve. Their recovery from their traumatic experiences due to dictatorship is our responsibility as citizens of this country. Where are the junglers? Dead. Where are the Green Boys? Dead. Where are the mercenary judges and the judicial system? Severely dismantled but not yet dead. We are stuck, depressed and traumatised by the horrific and inhumane dictatorial regime of Yahya Jammeh. We want to move on.
Let us talk politics. Let us critically examine our economy: what is going right? What is going wrong for us? How is our agriculture and people’s lives affected by torrential rains? Why is there such a huge unemployment rate amongst youth in our country despite our population being a youthful population? Why and how has our healthcare system reached the critical state of absolute collapse and not fit for its purpose? How could our small country, accommodate huge inward illicit drug trafficking and consumption? What does it tell us about the Government’s inaction in the areas of corruption, high cost of living and high death rates from our referral, general and private hospitals? Why are we no longer safe as a people and as a nation? What is responsible for the increased and high rates of crime in the country?
Let’s take a pause, think and remember Solo Sandeng, Koro Ceesay, Ndure Cham, The young school children who lost their lives from holding a peaceful demonstration: if your son was one of the dead how would you be feeling today; you the person promoting the Yahya agenda. The Ghanaian Nationals asking pertinent questions about the brutal killings of their loved ones.
The list goes on and on and on. Our hearts are with all their families and lost ones. Our Nation is still in mourning about the wrongs and ills of Yahya and his dictatorship regime.
Jammeh, Jammeh agenda promotion must end and the best place, space and environment to bring a closure for all of us victims and the general population is in the courts. RESPECT. PERIOD.
