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Alagi Yorro Jallow.Mamudu: I joined the entire nation extending my profound sympathy and solidarity to Mr. Kexx Sanneh and his family and the political family he belongs to for the pain and suffering he endured from his kidnappers and traducers.
I have read on social media the latest news about his freedom and welfare. I am glad that he reunited with his family and has resumed his regular duties. They talked about it in the streets, in homes, and their offices.
Many formal prayers were offered, and many more informal ones voiced the hope that Kexx would be returned safely to his house. Everywhere in the world, where accounts of the kidnapping are reported, or people said missing parents and other family members left behind might be overwhelmed by feelings of loss, anguish, despair, anger, confusion, and uncertainty about what can be done in response.
Mamudu: What do armed robbers do that the bandits kidnapping and killing citizens do not do? Do the bandits have “genuine concerns and grievances”?
It is a misfortune to share the same space with strange people whose entire lives are built on weird ideas? How do you train people who grew up sipping blood to be well and responsible again? The time to mold people who chose to be bandits and who profit from banditry is passed. Those we saw in Sanyang wrapped up with unimaginable weapons of death are too far gone. They cannot be saved. We need to work on how to be safe from them and from the violence that will come tomorrow from their descendants.
Mamudu: The state of insecurity in the Gambia is very grave. Very dire and frightful. Our citizens are not safe. Both the people and the government know this, and we are losing live and properties. We are losing our humanity. Why do partisans engage in deliberate falsehood in the face of emerging factual clarifications? Whom do we believe now? Are our journalists in the print and electronic media or the veritable “newscasters” on Facebook and other social media? Security and safety-wise, we are in a natural but undeclared state of emergency! Several events in the country have left many wondering about morality and safety in the Gambia. Lives are increasingly becoming cheap, as several occurrences are making many ponder. People are killed with impunity, and there appears not to be justice for the oppressed across the country. Ritualists and bloodthirsty animals are having a field day.
It is now so bad that there is no day that the reports about criminal activities do not make the headlines. Yes, there are crimes everywhere across all continents, but the Gambia’s color of crimes seems too choking and bizarre.
Today’s solution is a firm, responsible government that is willing to give them what they deserve, which is justice. The Gambia’s needle of peace has fallen into a deep well. We could see many from everywhere looking into the well and chanting all sorts of madness. What are the way out of the mass death, mass abduction, and mass misery that the country has imported and distributed to all Gambia?
Mamudu: With those commands displayed by the bandits operate, is it not clear that the dire situation may worsen? Who will retrieve the lost needle? Not the specialists on peace and security experts in the country while bandits, murderers, and kidnappers breathe fresh air, chew bitter cola, eat roasted meat at night?
Is the President talking? Is he taking action? Is it not said that he who is being carried does not realize how far the town is? Anyone who is not part of the solution is part of the problem. A heart patient once suffered a blockage as our nation suffers. Surgeons did a bypass and got blood into the heart again. As we advance, we need people of wisdom who would go down the well and retrieve peace for us.
The crime rate is gradually becoming a trend that all hands have to check the direction. It is like there is a demon roving around seeking blood. Men and women of conscience appear helpless. Everyone has suddenly become interested in ‘money and material things at all costs’ syndrome. In the Gambia, it seems no one bothers to know what one does because all that matters is money and ostentation. The craze for money is also traceable to several criminal activities in the country. Some of the proponents of ‘show-off’ are all over social media. They have no known source of income but terrorize society with state-of-the-art cars and imposing edifices. A hustler with legitimate means is thus derided as lazy and provokes insult contemptuously.
Mamudu: We need to know who is picking the bills for the bandits; we need to know who is protecting them and aiding and abetting them of banditry and for what purpose. We need to understand why bandits and criminals sympathize with the elites and why no political leader fights for banditry victims. We need people who will say ‘enough is enough and speak for the long-suffering citizens. We need people who would say ‘these poor people deserve peace,’ and that we all do, and that even the mightiest eagle comes down to the treetop to rest. May the Gambia learn to clear its forests of bandits.
The options are getting narrowed for all of us. We need peace, but there will not be peace until troublemakers stop hatching disorder. There cannot be peace when kidnapping and banditry are some people’s import to the Gambia. The horizon is pitch dark. The bandits are far gone in criminality. I am not sure if offred jobs they will accept even if they would take political appointments jobs in place of robbery and thievery they harvest daily from the rich and the poor. Criminality, banditry, and now kidnapping is the new normalin the Gambia resource pyramid. Bandits of the Gambia and their activities have stained the corporate political and ethnic identity of the Gambia. Threats of the use of banditry power against the poor victims can only make the stench stronger. The political elite and the country’s security chiefs should look beyond President Adama Barrow and his extraordinary powers and do something, at least to save their collective face.
Mamudu: To those who have placed this nation in such sorrow, if they are listening in, they must know into what grief this nation has been thrown. We ask that wisdom and judgment enter into their hearts and minds. They awaken their consciences to realize the significance of peace and stability at the moment is to a people that rejoice. In their rejoicing, a nation is glad and rejoices in peace and harmony. May the security chiefs know how to bolt the country’s doors. May God chase bandits away – far from this land.