The arrest of Lt. Colonel Sanna Manjang, Yahya Jammeh’s most infamous “Jungler” and a fugitive who vanished into the Casamance woods for nearly a decade, together with the spectacular collapse of Jammeh’s loudly advertised November homecoming, has stirred confusion, excitement, and outright delusion among Gambians and observers abroad.
Let’s start with Jammeh’s supposed homecoming. From day one, I treated the entire storyline as pure fiction. How was Jammeh, stranded in Equatorial Guinea without a valid passport, going to miraculously travel by air, land, or sea? No aircraft lifts off without documentation; no border officer waves through a former President in exile “by faith.” And without the explicit approval of President Teodoro Obiang in Malabo and President Adama Barrow in Banjul, the return was never more than a campfire tale, good for entertainment, but devoid of reality.
What I do believe, without hesitation, is that Jammeh is living a lonely, depressing existence in Equatorial Guinea. His sudden attempt to sound humble and conciliatory reflects not repentance but exhaustion. Yet even in desperation he bungles the basics. Instead of apologizing to the APRC members he unjustly purged, he announces that he has forgiven them, calling on them to reunite as “one family.” Everyone knows he tore the party apart; hence, he should be crawling back with an apology, not pretending to dispense absolution.
Still, his most fanatical supporters, those who insist he can materialize out of thin air, issued a press release blaming his failed return on “logistical delays” and “pending documents.” Meanwhile they were busy selling “ashobis” to the unsuspecting for a welcoming ceremony that was never going to happen. In reality, these were hustlers profiting off gullible believers who had been primed for a miracle.
And the drama didn’t stop there. Social media became a battlefield. Some Gambians, though not Jammeh fans, still fear his fabled “mystic powers” and genuinely expected him to appear like a spirit descending on Kanilai. Others, more reckless, threatened violence against the government should Jammeh be arrested on arrival.
This sudden frenzy, in my assessment, is what finally jolted the Barrow government into action regarding the long-hunted Sanna Manjang.
For nine years, Sanna moved freely between Guinea-Bissau and Casamance, occasionally visiting fellow fugitive Omar Sanneh (Baitulai) in Barrajassy. Sanneh himself is now behind bars in Casamance for crimes yet to be disclosed.
If The Gambia truly wanted Sanna earlier, they simply needed to do what they did last Friday by calling Dakar. Once the Senegalese security services were engaged, Sanna was apprehended quietly in a Casamance village where he was hustling for survival, some say as a baker, others as a charcoal smuggler. The latter alone could have landed him in a Senegalese jail, but because The Gambia requested him, he was handed over without fuss.
For once, the cooperation between the two countries worked smoothly. It should continue; cross-border criminals have enjoyed too much comfort for far too long.
But as usual, after the facts come the fairy tales.
A fabricated story emerged claiming that Sanna was arrested over a planned coup by Jammeh loyalists in the army, supposedly with the help of MFDC rebels. This theory evaporated instantly when families of the three brothers arrested alongside him publicly stated that the men were not MFDC members, not coup plotters, but simply charcoal workers. National Security Adviser Abubacarr Jeng confirmed that the three individuals were of no interest whatsoever to Gambian authorities.
So the “coup plot” narrative belongs in the dustbin. Then entered the most outrageous twist, from Senegalese journalist Pape Sané, claiming that during interrogation, Sanna was questioned by the Senegalese authorities about his alleged links to Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko and the PASTEF party. Sané presented this as insider information, as though Gambian interrogators take breaks to brief him in Dakar while leaving Gambian journalists clueless. Even if Sanna said such things, what if he was lying deliberately? What if he hoped to stir tension between Sonko and President Faye, whose political chemistry is already brittle?
This reminds me of 1996 when we captured Balo Kanteh after the Farafenni attack. Out of desperation, he concocted the false claim that the Senegalese state had sponsored their assault, an attempt to spark conflict between The Gambia and Senegal that almost succeeded.
In this case, either Sanna is lying, or Sané is manufacturing nonsense. But one thing is certain: No Gambian interrogator is leaking classified information to a Dakar journalist while Gambian newsrooms remain in the dark.
Both governments in The Gambia and Senegal must step forward immediately to clarify this situation before mischief-makers turn rumor into diplomatic tension.
By Lt. Colonel Samsudeen Sarr (Rtd.) former commander of The Gambia National Army.
