Fifty years after Nkrumah Jammeh reiterates African unity

President Yahya Jammeh has expressed confidence that Africans will one day be united and that African unity will also become a reality.

President Jammeh made this remarks yesterday in a marathon question and answer session when he hosted at State House 17 pupil-delegates from various schools in the Greater Banjul Area, ahead of the celebration of the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting.

According to the President, there is no doubt that even Allah wants unity. “In the Holy Quran, Allah has directed that Muslims must be united. In the Holy Bible too, God said people should be united. Love your neighbour as you love yourself. If you don't love you neighbour, there cannot be any unity. So unity is strength” he said.

According to the Gambian leader, whether or not Africa will unite depends on Africans themselves. He said when Africans realise that they have only one God and not a God in the West, when they realise that the strength of Africa will come from Africans themselves and that unity is indispensable, Africa will unite.
Echoing Cheikh Anta Diop’s grounding breaking masterpiece, President Jammeh noted that Africa was a united continent and its supremacy in herbal medicine stands for 500 years. “Africa was the lead herbal medicine, architecture and even science and technology” he said.

Further echoing the late great Walter Rodny’s “How Europe Under-developed Africa” President Jammeh emphasised that the West took ideas and material resources from Africa to build what they have today. “They stole our resources and there is nothing that they didn’t steal from Africa. They stole young men in the form of slaves, gold and diamonds and all mineral resources that they could lay hands on.

When they thought that they have nothing to steal, they started stealing death bodies from Africa. So they stole from Africa all our mineral resources that they can lay hands on and all the productive human resources. Even in the slave trade, they were not taking old men but young, strong, healthy and intelligent Africans and forced them into slavery” he said.
“So”, emphasised President Jammeh, “African unity is unquestionable”.

He expressed confidence that the continent will be united and regain its lost glory. This he said is because Africa is a great continent and African people have been suffering for a while. Our problem started not because we were weak but we were hospitable, and tolerant. As Jomo Kenyatta said, when they came we had the land and they had the bible. They asked us to close our eyes to pray and when we opened our eyes they had our land and we had their bible. We allowed the West to come and colonised us to the extent that today after 400 years we are speaking English and wearing western dresses, instead of our own Kaftans and grand-boubous. So the young generation of Africans now understand what it means to be an African and our salvation and freedom would come from ourselves and not from others. As Bob Marley said we have to free our own mind from mental slavery. Once these is realized by all, we will be united and regain our lost glory” he said.

According to President Jammeh, up to today, Africa is the richest continent in terms of mineral and natural resources but the reason why we are the poorest of the poor is because those who divided us have not left us with anything and continue to manipulate Africans and create wars amongst us for them to exploit our resources, examples are Sierra Leone, Angola and other countries. The West are like chickens in our gardens which find worms by creating a lot of dust. The more war there is the more they benefit.

He then observed that, wars are only found in mineral rich countries. “This because once there is a war in a mineral rich country, the west can exploit it and have it cheaply or even for free. When Africans realise that war is not in any Africans interest, we will stop it and embrace each other. Whether one likes it or not, this is Africa’s millennium, and we must make it happen for Africa to become a power to be reckoned with” he said.
On the Darfur, Somalia conflicts in which children are the most vulnerable, and where African leaders are failing to find a solution, President Jammeh clarified that some African leaders are presidents in Africa but are serving foreign interests. “There are others African serving our masters outside the continent.  You have other African heads of state who are Africans, believe in Africa and work towards making Africa a better continent.

There are others who are so nationalistic that they are not pan-Africanist. They only think their countries being narrow-minded nationalists. So you have three different groups of African leaders and this is why we have so many wars in Africa that could have been stopped before they were started but are allowed become major conflicts”.

President Jammeh then advised that if If African leaders want a united, dignified, developed and advanced African continent, countries should not engage in war. “When you look at the refugee camps, the future leaders of the continent are found there. They cannot even find food there much more to think of education. So what future do we expect the African continent to have if millions of African children at a time when they were supposed to go to school peacefully and live in homes are forced into refugee camps where they don’t have access to basic education” he questioned.

The Gambian leader then advised leaders to understand that the development of Africa does not depend on any one’s allegiance to the West, but ones plan and working with his or her people so that every body participate in the socio-economic development of the nation to fight poverty.
At the end of the ceremony, President Jammeh was presented with the GRTS award of the 2006 International Children’s Day of Broadcasting.

Mrs Neneh Macdouall Gaye, secretary of state for communication and information technology used the occasion to salute President Jammeh and First Lady, Madam Zineb Yahya Jammeh for their immense contribution which, according to her, led GRTS to win this international award.

The ceremony also witnessed the handing over of the GRTS 2006 award of the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting to President Jammeh by Njameh Bah, a staff of GRTS.
The students also presented a birth day card to the Gambian leader for his first male born baby and congratulated him.

Dr Tamsir Mbowe, director-general of the HIV/AID treatment programme also graced the occasion.
Read more of the exchanges between His Excellency the President and the school children in our subsequent editions.