First of all, Abdoulie Saine insulted himself. He has shown to the Gambian nation that he is a hateful, ignorant and immoral man. This is because among the ‘Sosseh-yi’ Abdoulie has friends, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, colleagues and neighbours. To now insult these people on account of their tribe means Abdoulie is showing those people that he, Abdoulie is a disrespectful piece of shame. So, in essence Abdoulie is merely insulting himself.
No Mandinka or Sosseh should feel offended because Abdoulie Saine cannot impugn the good name and dignity of any ethnic group in the Gambia much more the Mandinka. Like all other ethnic groups, the Mandinka people, as a collective are an embodiment of dignity, respect and patriotism. The Mandinka need no validation or vilification of any human being to feel good or anguish. All of our ethnic groups are the same in form and content as they share the same good values and norms and with the same cultural practices, food, attire, ceremonies and festivals. We are inextricably interwoven through marriage, settlement, business, profession, love and nationality. We should not allow any nonentity with selfish diabolical intentions to tear us apart!
To therefore attempt to engage in that nonsensical distinction between ‘Mandinka’; and ‘Sosseh’ is like trying to differentiate between ‘Orange’ in English and ‘Sorans’ in Wolof. Only an ignorant person who has no knowledge of Wolof and English languages would engage in such foolery. We can excuse such a person. But for a person who is well versed in both Wolof and English languages to engage in such calumny can only be described as a dishonest man who seeks to fool himself in his unsuccessful attempt to mislead the rest of mankind. Hence once again Abdoulie Saine insults no one except himself. He has exposed how undeserving he is to be respected and regarded as a decent son of the Gambia.
No Gambian, especially a Mandinka man or women should therefore allow Abdoulie Saine to make you feel resentment against the Wolof or Fula or Jola or Aku and indeed against any other ethnic group. Abdoulie Saine does not represent any family, city, town, ethnic group or political party when he uttered those hateful comments. He only represented himself by manifesting that he is indeed an undesirable son of the Gambia. This is why all Gambians of all ethnic groups and surnames came out in their numbers to unequivocally condemn him in unison.
The height of Abdoulie Saine’s self-insult is when he expressed in glowing terms his love for dictatorship and Yaya Jammeh against democracy and the Gambian people. Dictatorship is a corrupt, immoral, criminal and violent enterprise. To have any human being express desire for dictatorship therefore means endorsing the crimes, rapes, atrocities and corruption of that evil system. What is even more self-insulting is for any Gambian to support a despot like Yaya Jammeh who had tortured and killed fellow Gambians while bastardising public resources with impunity. Therefore, Abdoulie has once again shown that he is an enemy of the Gambia.
Hence what Abdoulie Saine demonstrated is a total lack of shame and respect as well as a complete demonstration of his lack of remorse, inhumanity and unpatriotism by endorsing Yaya Jammeh. Abdoulie Saine has shown Gambians that he, in fact supported the killing of Gambian children in April 2000. He has shown that he endorsed the burning to death of Koro Ceesay or the murder of Deyda Hydara. He has shown that he applauds the rape and abuse of Gambian women and girls by Yaya Jammeh and his Junglers. Abdoulie Saine has shown all Gambians that he is not fit to be a true son of Saine Kunda much less the Gambia for he has shown his love for a murderer, rapist, looter and criminal in the person of Yaya Jammeh and his reign of terror against the people of the Gambia.
Abdoulie Saine did not only insult himself but by further endorsing dictatorship and approving Yaya Jammeh’s atrocities he has also insulted the whole of the Gambia. But much more than that, Abdoulie Saine has also insulted Allah (swt) by claiming that Yaya Jammeh is a saint and a friend of Allah. Anyone human being who associates Yaya Jammeh with Allah is indeed not only an imbecile but also insults God. During his entire rule of terror, Yaya Jammeh had exemplified himself as an arch anti-Allah ruler, manifested in his constant and consistent torment of Muslims for merely practising their faith. Yaya Jammeh had tortured, imprisoned and humiliated imams and religious scholars in this country for no other reason other than the fact that those religious leaders worshipped Allah as they know it.
The Gambian Constitution guarantees freedom of religion hence to have the President of the Gambia violate that entrenched right is in itself a treasonable offence as specified in Section 5 subsection 3(1) of our Constitution. Yet Abdoulie Saine, as a serving member of our National Assembly never held Yaya Jammeh to account for his direct and blatant defilements of our Constitution.
From 2007 to 2017 Abdoulie Saine represented Banjul Central in the National Assembly yet he had never ever fulfilled his constitutional role to hold Yaya Jammeh and his corrupt government to account. Rather Abdoulie endorsed every illegality of Yaya Jammeh including voting to annul the 2016 presidential election results and extending the term of office of Yaya Jammeh and the parliament and imposing a state of emergency on the country contrary to the Constitution. For 10 good years Abdoulie Saine only served to harm the citizens of Banjul Central, Banjul and the Gambia as a whole.
It is therefore no wonder that Abdoulie Saine is still speaking for that murderous regime. By all accounts Abdoulie Saine should be immediately arraigned before a competent court of law and charged with treason for aiding and abetting the blatant and violent disregard of the Constitution and the rule of law in the Gambia under Yaya Jammeh. Furthermore, all of our political parties and leaders must come out to condemn Abdoulie Saine. The party in which he belongs should force him to retract his spiteful comments and reprimand him severely or expel him.
It must be noted that the only reason that Abdoulie Saine is still alive, free and happy at home with the ability to engage in hateful speech and extoling tyranny is simply because of Democracy. Abdoulie could speak with dishonour against democracy today thanks to Democracy. Abdoulie knows that under Yaya Jammeh he dared not speak against Dictatorship and still survive it. But thanks to Democracy, Abdoulie can attack Democracy and still survive under democracy. Is it not therefore self-insult for such a person to extoll a criminal enterprise like Dictatorship?
In conclusion, I hereby call on the Inspector General of Police to arrest and charge Abdoulie Saine with hate speech. His speech violates the Constitution under Section 19 (right to personal liberty), Section 25 (freedom of expression), Section 26 (right to political activity), Section 32 (right to culture) and Section 33 (protection from discrimination) and various sections of the Criminal Code. The speech that Abdoulie Saine delivered violated all of these entrenched clauses as he sought to either threaten the rights and lives of a group of citizens as well as raising public contempt against that group and further denying that group their human dignity and respect. These are enough grounds to charge a person for hate speech and incitement to violence and violation of the Constitution contrary to Section 5 and the Criminal Code.
The ball is in the court of the IGP!
For the Gambia Our Homeland!