Two Trials

There were two stories in the news today that attracted my attention:

1) The Deputy Permanent Secretary of Agriculture's court case: So this guy goes to a bar. After having a few drinks he boasts about working for the State House, and hints ominuously that he has knowledge of the "true" owners of the Daily Observer. As a result he ends up being hauled into court, on one charge of giving false information, and another of impersonating public officers. 

2) Mam Sait Ceesay's Trial for writing a report announcing someone had been appointed to a Government position when they had not, the only harm done being that the subject in question's friend called him to congratulate him only to find out it was not true. [Mr Ceesay was arrested with a fellow journalist, Malick Jones - somewhere along the way the case against Mr Jones was quietly dropped]

Both cases sound, from where I am sitting, more like the defendants simply pissed off the wrong guy in the labyrinthine power structure which is the Gambia Government (i.e. APRC party), and are now getting punished for it.  

One of the major problems of having one party pretty much run the state is that party in-fighting and all the other nastiness involved in party politics automatically spill over, into (ideally neutral) Government space. Because there are no checks in place, the ruling party uses the powers of Government it has to coerce/bribe people into supporting it, completely undermining the whole democratic process, and then when it is in power continues this trend to lengthen its stay. 

The sycophancy and praise-singing which have become such a staple in even the lowliest civil servants' speeches in the Gambia are not there because these people like to grovel before others and kiss their feet - they are there because the way the system is set up, you have to please (at the most basic, animal level) the people above you in order for them to give you a hand up. Working for the Government is not just turning up for work everyday, and dutifully doing your bit - it's also showing full party support, or at worst not being seen to be in opposition to the party ("unpatriotic" is a useful word here - it has come to mean not supporting the party (and therefore not liking your country), and in these times is one of the most deadly accusations someone can make of a civil servant). 

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that within the party itself there is nothing even remotely approaching intelligent debate, or healthy disagreements on issues that affect all Gambians. Instead there are these continuous power jostles, people being sacked and taken to prison and re-instated and sacked again, until everyone is on their last nerves, and marabouts in the country are doing a brisk business in job-preserving jujus. This is bad for the party itself - though it gives some control to the leaders, which is probably the point, it is also creating a fragmented party, one which will not stand up to any real crisis (such as an opposition worthy of the name actually competing for elections, and going all the way). And, since the party in this case is also the state, it's bad for the country as a whole - if you did a survey of civil servants, especially in the higher positions, "losing my job" would probably be one of the top fears listed by participants. This cannot be a healthy thing for the country - a civil servant is more likely to be corrupt, and do a hit-and-run on their position, when they continually fear losing their position.  And instead of concentrating on doing productive work for the country, they instead concentrate on improving their rankings within the party, since this is after all the more important benchmark by which they will be measured, in the end.