(JollofNews) Gambia’s ousted ruler Yahya Jammeh has used the country’s feared National Intelligence (NIA) to spy on President Adama Barrow and his colleagues during last year’s presidential elections, a report into the conduct of the agency says.
According to the report, an unamed NIA officer on study leave was planted in the Barrow campaign to fed information to Mr Jammeh. It said the officer gained the confidence of the opposition camp and rose to the position of bodyguard to Mr Barrow even during the political impasse and shortly after his assumption to the Office of the President.
The unnamed officer is now promoted to a senior post in the agency and is directly answerable to the director general.
The NIA reports directly to the president, and is responsible for protecting state security, collecting intelligence, and conducting covert investigations.
But the report submitted to the Office of the President by the agency’s owned legal adviser, Bubacarr A.M.O Badjie, said over 60 per cent of its staff are “functionally illiterate” who can neither read nor understand the English Language.
It said a large percentage of the staff some of whom were members of President Jammeh’s Green Youths and relatives living at the residence of Mr Jammeh’s mum, were recruited into the agency by past and present directors, former army generals and Mr Jammeh’s cousin, Pa Bojang.
“The usefulness of such people as NIA agents is very insignificant as most of them cannot write comprehensive English Language nor understand it,” Badjie wrote in the report leaked to the independent Point Newspaper.
The NIA was used during Mr Jammeh’s reign to commit cross human rights abuses including arbitrary arrest, torture and murder of Mr Jammeh’s opponents and journalists.
The report observed that following the collapse of Mr Jammeh’s regime, the former NIA director-general, Yankuba Badjie in an attempt to cover up evidence of criminality, had removed torture equipment and repainted the torture chamber to hide the blood stains of torture victims.
It added that many officers involved in the torture and murder of government critics and opponents including Solo Sandeng, of the United Democratic Party (UDP) are still actively working for the agency without the threat of arrest and prosecution.
Although the new Gambian government has put in place a number of reforms in the agency including a change to its name and removal of some functions including the power of arrest and detention, the report said it has failed to touch some of the key issues affecting the agency.
“Ordinarily, the first priority of the reform is to conduct a proper staff audit as writing is the working tool of the intelligence agents,” Mr Badjie wrote in the petition.
“The reform is not yet done and without it the NIA cannot contribute effectively to the crucial role a democratised intelligence service can play in the national security architecture to combat both traditional and emerging threats including terrorism, espionage, insurgency, sabotage, subversion, human trafficking, money laundering and illegal migration.”
So Gambian taxpayers are still paying there wages ?That’s quite insulting to the struggle don’t we think ?
At the same time real Politik advice that we put up with some people until adequate replacement is assured. Also a lot of lawful and sensible purging is going on, albeit accompanied by cry of witch-hunting. The later the very theme that appeals to you most on jollof pages! At least that is my impression, which may, fair enough, be wrong.
Let’s try truth hunting ?
I suppose that’s standard practice in intelligence gathering across the world, though how the collected material/data is handled differs; so let’s not make too much fuss about it.
With a professional outfit, the data gathered is processed, analysed and acted upon to safeguard the nation’s security. It is not shared with any unauthorised persons, even the head of state, unless security threats are identified.
I am pretty certain that Presidential candidates in the USA or Party Leaders in the UK are assessed by their country’s respective intelligence agencies because they are potential Presidents or Prime Ministers.
We see how (rtd) General Flint lost his job in the Trump Administration because he is alleged to have met with Russians. Even Trump’s son in law is alleged to have met the Russian Ambassador and agreed to open communication lines. How else would these be known, if not through spying on them? Only God knows what the intelligence agencies have on Trump himself.
I am not sure about the NIA (due to its reputation & unprofessionalism) but a serious intelligence agency needs to assess people who seek high public office, especially the Office of President, to protect the nation.
I wouldn’t make too much fuss about spying on the coalition team or suggest that the agent should be penalised. He/she was just doing their job and if he had not been found out, then I would say he is a damn good operative. The agency should maintain his/her service, as far as I’m concerned.
National security must not be compromise and only foolish people reveal the secrecy of the state interligence agencies . even the world super powers keeps the secrecy of there national security . we should learned how to keep sectecy
Bax; Very true/ I guess the Russians must be highly amused. But that does not make any of us safer in our beds. Cyber warfare is another deeply troubling state of the new modern technology era. The need for top rated cyber security software is a great challenge for us all. Even my windows 10 has again had its security re-booted. That makes 3 times in 5 weeks. I suppose the advanced nations security intrusion techniques means all computerised systems are now at risk of closing down civilisation. This make hourly backup imperative. Maybe a reversal to technology from 20 years ago may make a comeback ?