(JollofNews) – An exiled former Gambian military commander who was recently granted amnesty by President Yahya Jammeh has revealed his intentions to return
to Banjul.
Colonel Samsudeen Sarr who has been living in the US since he was retired from the army over ten years ago, was a vocal critic of President Jammeh and his regime and has written a book and many online articles against the regime, which has won him the admiration of many Gambians.
However, to the surprise of many Gambians, the former commander had a change of heart and was last month granted audience with President Yahya Jammeh in New York during which he apologised to the Gambian leader and sought for forgiveness.
He said after the past years of serious commitment to detach himself from the regrettable past, he is horrified of the content of some articles he wrote against the Gambian regime.
“If I could have it my way, nobody would ever associate that troubling past with me or anything I represent today,” Colonel Sarr wrote in an article to the online Freedom Newspaper.
“I was lost in a turbulent disposition of anger, frustration and above all denial of what I couldn’t accept as a divine phenomenon. I was in a vindictive mindset, unable to recognise that the rapid change that affected my life in the Gambia, impelling me into self-exile, had everything to do with god’s design and nothing to do with President Jammeh and his government. My stubbornness against the advice of my mother, grandmother and other key members of my family to stop the unnecessary resistance culminated into degenerative effects to their lives. They ultimately died praying for me to wake up from such a satanic influence of which when I did, the first thing I noticed was the deplorable lifestyle I was living, in the name of a political activist.”
Responding to comments that the amnesty granted to him by President Jammeh is mere death trap to lure him into the Gambia, Colonel Sarr said he is absolutely convinced that President Jammeh has unconditionally forgiven him and he will be visiting Banjul as soon as possible.
He added: “I was expecting nothing easy about confronting my ungodly past and would have perfectly understood President Jammeh if he had turned down my appeal for amnesty, given the outrageous things I had written about him in the past. I guess that was the main reason why so many people warned me not to try because of their certainty of my failure to be pardoned at all.”
Paying tribute to the forgiving nature of President Jammeh, Colonel Sarr said: “I was there when ex-President Dawda Jawara was overthrown in 1994 for all the documented reasons over why President Jammeh had to do it. Yet after years of their seemingly irreconcilable difference, there was forgiveness, compromise and mutual acceptance of each other’s standpoint as divine reality. Instigators have futilely tried everything to derail that lovely accomplishment by sending implicating messages to President Jammeh about Jawara’s failed activities to counter overthrow his government while in exile.
“Jawara was accused of failed attempts to hire assassins and mercenaries against Jammeh but still he treats the former like an honorable retired statesman of the highest order. Even President Jawara’s family member are today working for President Jammeh. That is what I call true reconciliation.
“I am therefore not surprised to experience the same pattern of troublemakers digging out everything obtainable to destroy my achievement as well. The Almighty god knows very well that I am in peace with my beliefs and that I will never succumb to fear and intimidation.”
