I saw some of you calling for Adama Barrow to sack Seedy Njie. In another world, I too would have echoed these calls. But I know better! Sadly, what many of you do not seem to understand is that Adama Barrow himself thrives in tribal bigotry just as many of us do. Do you honestly believe that Adama Barrow is not aware of Seedy Njie’s tribal crusade against the Mandinkas? That is what butters the stale bread of the Seedy Njies and his ilk. Sometimes, the naivete of some Gambians is beyond comprehension. Let me share a few quotes from the demigod of the world that birthed Seedy Njie and his type. Perhaps some of you will respect history a lot more.
Since 1994, those who have continued to cause trouble in the country have been Mandinkas. Any Mandinka crazy enough to follow them, I swear to Allah, not even a fly will see you. Anybody who dares to demonstrate, go ahead and see what will happen. From 1994 until now, 98% of troublemakers have been Mandinkas; those embarking on illegal migration are Mandinkas. They claim to be telling people the truth; that’s between them and Allah…. Yaya Jammeh
On a different date and completely different occasion:
Mandinkas, return to the Almighty Allah and reaffirm your faith. You claim this is a Mandinka country; where is that written in history? I have irrefutable evidence to disprove that. In 1864, there were no Mandinkas in this country; you all came from Mali. You better behave, I will not allow foreigners to destroy this country. When you say Mandin (land of the Mandinkas), that means you’re from Mali… Yaya Jammeh.
I hope those of you in the UDP clamouring for unity with Almameh Gibba and his gang of tribal chauvinists are taking note. But moving on….
The quotes above reflect the dirty, bigoted, and mindless world Seedy Njie and his type call home. It is the same world that the ugly-suit-wearing idiot Bala Garba Jahumpa calls home. It is the world of Saihou Mballoh and Demba Sabally. It is the world in which Adama Barrow and his APRC friends reside. But look within that world, and you would also find many spineless men and women who call themselves Mandinkas. When Yaya Jammeh made these stupid remarks, many Mandinkas in his audience gleefully cheered his stupidity and ignorance. Not because they agreed with him, but because they had long since traded what little dignity they had for the vestiges of a government job.
In the world that Seedy Njie resides in, the tribal war they wage against Mandinkas is not a secret to any of them. To them, UDP is just a euphemism for Mandinka. They, including those who call themselves Mandinkas, all know of this war, and those of us with discerning minds know it. When you heard Saihou Mballoh listing all the important government positions occupied by Fulas in the Barrow government, he was regurgitating what many in that world consider a victory for Fulas. When the same Saihou Mballoh called Adama Barrow a Machudoh (enslaved person), he was echoing how some of them regard Adama Barrow. Those who subscribe to Saihou Mballoh’s bigotry cheered him. Some congratulated him on his bravery, saying what they thought but dared not say. The Mandinkas in the NPP called their trusted friends to grumble. They whispered complaints to one another. One even went so far as to whine that the Mandinkas in the NPP/APRC cabal feel marginalised. In public, these Mandinkas remained silent to avoid jeopardising their “government job.”
We can complain about Seedy Njie all we want, but he is not alone in his tribal bigotry. For someone with so little education and zero skills to survive on his own, what else can Seedy Njie offer Adama Barrow besides mindless bigotry? And that is what many like him, Sayyindi Jatta, Saihou Mballoh, Maimuna Ceesay, and many others offer Adama Barrow. When some of us insist that we hold one another accountable for our actions during the tyranny of Jammeh, this is exactly what we mean. Seedy Njie may not have put plastic bags over the heads of Gambians and snuffed life out of them, but given his role in Jammeh’s tyranny, why is he getting a free pass? Sadly, today, we have some people telling us that there is nothing wrong with embracing tribal bigots from Jammeh’s APRC. Seedy Njie is only a symptom of the mindless tribal bigotry besieging this country. Sadly, I doubt any political party would give him a red-carpet welcome if he were to leave the APRC/NPP. And that is the tragedy in all this. Look within your circles, and you will find many more Seedy Njies! Seedy is going nowhere.
By Alhagie Saidy- Barrow
