Thursday 19 January 2017

Mischief in The Gambia: The Remainer of Banjul

                                                                                                Map:  Wiki
Politics in the UK and the USA, it has to be said, are pretty interesting just now: but meanwhile, in the rest of the world ...  As Gambian president Yahya Jammeh plays his post-election game of Will He, Won't He (go without a fight), his neighbours steaming across the border to offer menaces against him and tourists reluctantly coming home on FCO advice, the Army declares itself a non-participant.  “I am not going to involve my soldiers in a stupid fight. I love my men” said Ousman Badjie, chief of the defence staff
... stopping to pose for selfies with admirers. “If they [Senegalese] come in, we are here like this,” Badjie said, making a hands up to surrender gesture.  
Sounds about right, from my modest experience of this strange little country on business 18 months ago.   (This boosted my stock of crazy third-world anecdotes, which I may relate in some future Saturday post if it's quiet one week.)   His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh Babili Mansa - el presidente for a few more hours perhaps - was always a bit flaky, e.g. his recent declaration that The Gambia was going to become an economic superpower a few years from now.   His electorate were evidently sceptical about this; and to be fair, there were no outward and visible signs of superpower-type things happening.  Or anything, really. 

I couldn't help noticing that the locals in this longtime British Commonwealth country spoke English and French equally, and the explanation I was given (plus a glance at the map) makes it obvious enough.  The lengthy border with francophone Senegal is totally porous and bears no relationship to the tribal boundaries: people drift in and out between the two countries all the time.  Not a propitious basis for armed resistance against the local heavyweights of the country that surrounds them on three sides, plus Nigeria. 

The majority of the population are Muslim in an easygoing sort of way (hey, for years before ebola it was a major-league holiday destination for scantily clad, boozy westerners); but there is no shortage of Christians either.  The entertaining local newspapers devote the front page to obsequious coverage of the president's latest witterings, but inside the crime reports are colourful, and a page each is given to an Imam and a Catholic priest, from which columns I learned several worthwhile doctrinal points.


The beaches are stunning (my pix, not a brochure).  But my "4-star hotel"  - a household name global franchise - had an extremely dodgy electricity supply (no fun in a hot conference room when the OHP and the aircon die on you)  and no telephones ... 

Jammeh has been offered exile in Nigeria, but at the time of writing he hasn't taken it up.  The whole of the dark continent is watching this one closely as it might still represent an exceptionally rare event - an African dictator giving up power without bloodshed.  And with a strategic position as weak as the one conveyed by the map, I think we must assume that'll be the eventual result.  Hopefully so - for all concerned.

ND

11 comments:

Thud said...

I see the bottom has fallen out of the toyboy market then, lots of unhappy middle aged blonde divorcees being flown home.

Anonymous said...

Why does that map remind me of a medical diagram?

Anonymous said...

Sensible choice by the Army guy - I was just thinking at teatime that he's in a very difficult position.

Electro-Kevin said...

Thud - We've been importing toyboys by the boatload instead. They age rather quickly though, so they keep having to bring more in.

Bill Quango MP said...

Thud,
A divorced woman I know got an African lover from the Gambia.
She is 46. He is 22. They have been together a{ish} about 2 years now.

She isn't blonde though. She has that purple hair with beads.

Jan said...

Anon 10.50

....yes I thought it was someone's alimentary canal at first glance...

Thud said...

BQ...ahhh yes, the Bo derek, always a popular standby for the dodgy female lover of exotic holidays.

Dick the Prick said...

@BQ - fair play to her, I guess. Each to their own and all that. Poor chap sounds like he's got himself a Lib Dem though!

It sounds as though this presidente chap is perhaps holding out for a bit more cash and a bolt hole somewhere in Europe. Seems rather churlish Germany not doing the decent - thought they loved that kind of thing. Fingers crossed anyway - one of my chums got flown back yesterday which seems appropriately practical.

Anonymous said...

I see Hammond went to Davos and told Tony Blair he was responsible for Brexit! And just to round things off the academic who IIRC wrote the 2010 Green Party manifesto has been done for having inappropriate online chats with young ladies as well as a collection of inappropriate jpegs.

Nick Drew said...

it gets better and better

now if Jammy Jammeh would just bugger off quietly, we can all have a nice weekend

Anonymous said...

"...and we can all have a nice weekend."

So can the Gambians, since Jammeh has gone. Gambia can now apply to rejoin the Commonwealth. And once Mugabe pegs it, so can Rhodesia -- a.k.a. Zimbabwe, an appropriate name for a country that is now a ruin, having originally been built by some else.

And the former British Somaliland wants to leave "Somalia" and return to Her Majesty's Dominions.

Brexit will offer a lot of opportunities to re-connect with the world that we created.