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Momodou
Denmark
11508 Posts |
 Posted - 15 Jul 2021 : 17:11:35
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Ousman Koro Ceesay Lives! The Conviction of Yankuba Touray
By Madi Jobarteh
The conviction of Yankuba Touray on July 14 is indeed a welcome news for their dastardly act of murder of one of the best sons of the Republic, Ousman Koro Ceesay on 22 June 1995. This conviction proves that the road to justice can be so long but it shall always arrive at its rightful destination. Yet this journey is not yet complete until the co-perpetrators of Yankuba Touray including Yaya Jammeh, Edward Singhateh, Peter Singhateh, Alhaji Kanyi and the rest all face justice. Life is sacred. No one gives life and therefore no one should under any circumstances take life.
It is in recognition of the sanctity of life that in fact this ruling is most significant yet raising many questions. In the first place, the Barrow administration cannot carry out this sentence of death because he had signed, in September 2017 the Second Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which calls for the abolition of death penalty. The National Assembly ratified the protocol a year later in September 2018. Before that, Pres. Barrow had announced earlier in February 2018 that the Gambia has put a moratorium on death penalty. Therefore, by international law the Gambia cannot carry out this death sentence, which means Yankuba would at best spend the rest of his life in prison, deservedly.
What the Second Optional Protocol of the ICCPR indicates is that the right to life is absolute. Under no circumstances, is it justifiable to deprive someone of his or her life, either by an individual or a state even if the perpetrator killed 1 million lives. The idea and practice of killing life should be abandoned by every civilised human being and every civilized society and government.
Yet having said that, the death penalty remains in the Constitution of the Gambia, where Section 18(3) states,
“The National Assembly shall within ten years from the date of the coming into force of this Constitution review the desirability or otherwise of the total abolition of the death penalty in The Gambia.”
This provision should have been dealt with since 2007, i.e. 10 years after the Constitution came into force in 1997. Yet here we are in 2021, fourteen good years after that deadline, and still neither the Executive nor any National Assembly Member or Committee of the National Assembly submitted any bill for the amendment of this section in order to remove the death penalty.
What kind of Government will go to the international community to ratify laws and make pronouncements to commit oneself to an obligation yet at home your own national laws contravene that very commitment? This is what the Barrow Government has done and certified by the National Assembly when they ratified the Second Optional Protocol in 2018. One again this shows that the new rulers of the Gambia – both in the National Assembly and the Executive – and their political parties are not committed to system change as they love to proclaim it.
Once Gambians must rise up to demand real system change. Five years has been wasted without any system change. Citizens must put pressure on their political parties, NAMs and National Assembly as a whole as well as on the President to make sure that there is system change now. There are multiple places in the Constitution that require an act of the National Assembly to either set up an institution or create a procedure for the better governance of this country, yet they are not done even though NAMs and the Executive know about them.
One such provision is Section 92 which is to set the procedure for the recall of a NAM by the electorates. But since that is not in their interest, they ignored that provision completely and rather went to change Section 91(1)(d) to protect NAMs from losing their seats if their parties sack them. The Executive also changed Section 62 to remove the upper age limit just to allow Pres. Barrow to appoint both Fatoumatta Tambajang and Ousainou Darboe as Vice Presidents. We do not need selfish NAMs and a President!
For the Gambia Our Homeland.
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Momodou
Denmark
11508 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jul 2021 : 00:20:14
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Ousman Koro Ceesay Lives! Yankuba Touray and the Verdict of History
By Madi Jobarteh
After spending few days in prison so far for the murder of Ousman Koro Ceesay, Yankuba Touray will now have realised that impunity does not last. Never. If he were a thinking being, he would have realised that no one single person has power but the people. The power that Yankuba and his AFPRC Criminals were brandishing in those days was nothing but the power of the people entrusted to him and his co-criminals. Today, Yankuba will learn that when the people entrust you with their power, do not usurp it and then transform it into a weapon against the people. It will not last.
Therefore, to Yankuba Touray, I wish him a reflective stay in Mile 2 so that he will think all over again about his life as a human being, a citizen, a State officer and now a convict. Yankuba, just like his co-perpetrators, especially those who constituted the Junta, had the unique opportunity to lead their people to the promised land. The masses of Gambians welcomed the coup hoping that they will see a transformation of their lives for the better.
Instead, Yankuba and his co-Junta Criminals sought to hoodwink the masses with meaningless statements like ‘soldiers with a difference’ and hypocritical slogans like ‘transparency, accountability and probity’ when, in fact they were the most corrupt and immoral souls on earth! People wholeheartedly gave them support and willingly followed them, not realising that these ‘soldiers with a difference’ were indeed greedy traitors; the scum of the scumbags of the earth.
So, let Yankuba blame no one but himself! Even though he cannot now face Koro Ceesay to repent. But he has the family of Koro here. He has Gambians here. Instead of continuing to wallow in the arrogance that landed him in Mile 2, he needs to have some self-esteem and begin the process of repentance and apology to his victims and the generality of Gambians. That might not pull him out of Mile 2, but it can reduce the heavy load of self-inflicted arrogance, hatred and vain anger that now engulf him.
To those Dictator Lovers who seek to distort, rationalise, deny and mislead about this case, one can only pity them and hope they will have the courage of their convictions to recognize Yaya Jammeh and his Regime as evil to be rejected for good. Yankuba had the unique opportunity to come before the TRRC to narrate his story even if it would be a mere cock and bull lies like that of Edward Singhateh. But he would have the benefit of going home for a while to wait for the TRRC to conclude and see what the recommendations would be for him. But sheer arrogance and ignorance can make a person destroy his life and this is what Yankuba did to himself.
No one should engage in such analogies that claim that this ruling is not fair simply because Yakubu’s co-perpetrators are walking free. Some even refer to the ‘freed’ Junglers to claim that what happened to Yankuba is a farce. Far from it. What happened to Yankuba is bound to happen simply because he failed to face any form of accountability. And so, if he refuses to testify before the truth commission surely, he must face accountability elsewhere because Yankuba was adversely mentioned for this murder. He is not a sacred cow!
Of course, one of the most ludicrous stories comes from the usual suspect Ebou Jallow who dishonestly claimed that Yankuba did not kill Koro and in fact Yankuba was fooled into taking part in the crime. It is not that Ebou is ignorant of the law that aiding in any way in a crime makes you a principal actor. But this unconscionable Champion Lover of the Dictator knew that that heinous crime was committed in Yankuba’s house who never attempted to stop it as soon as he knew about it. Since then he also never did anything to ensure that there is accountability for that crime. Yet Ebou Jallow thinks Yankuba is innocent. What a warped mindset!
Let the Lovers of the Dictator rant and fret. Let them continue to ridicule TRRC, but justice and accountability shall run their natural course. Those who concocted and imposed that warped narrative on society yesterday because they were in power, cannot and will not continue to determine that same warped narrative today. For 22 odd years, they abused and misruled this society at unimaginable cost to life and dignity. Today, 26 years after the killing of Koro, the day of reckoning has begun and will never stop until Yaya Jammeh is captured, tried, convicted sooner than later and dumped in Cell Number 1 in the Maximum Security Wing at Mile 2 for life! This is the verdict of history.
For the Gambia Our Homeland. |
A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Ousman Koro Ceesay Lives! The Conviction of Yanks
