One is often advised never to wrestle with a pig—you both get dirty, but the pig enjoys it. And yet, when the Gambia Armed Forces (GAF), through its Director of Press and Public Relations Colonel Lamin K. Sanyang, decided to leap squealing into the mud with a press release dated May 6th, 2025, it became incumbent upon me to hold up a mirror, if only to expose the farce of the performance.
Let’s be clear: the press statement—ostensibly a high-level response to two citizens exercising their democratic right to critique public institutions—read more like a scolding from a wounded governor than a reasoned defense from a military institution supposedly reformed under Security Sector Reform (SSR). Indeed, if this represents the culmination of the GAF’s SSR journey, then we might need to review whether the acronym stands not for “Security Sector Reform” but “Strategic Silencing of Reason.”
The press release, cloaked in the heavy banner of national security, attempted to wag its finger at both Mr. Essa Mbaye Faal and me—two citizens who dared to question why a sovereign republic should rely on foreign muscle to keep the peace, and why soldiers remain posted at Denton Bridge as if Banjul were the West Bank. Instead of sober analysis, however, we were treated to what can only be described as a tirade wrapped in the gauze of bureaucratic indignation.
It began, as these things often do, with “serious concern.” Ah yes, the old opener—used so frequently by fragile institutions to ward off the ghosts of accountability. According to Colonel Sanyang, our words are “misleading,” “incendiary,” “unethical,” “unpatriotic,” and “unbecoming.” One wonders if he had a thesaurus or word-finder on hand or merely rattled off a checklist from “How Not to Accept Criticism 101.”
But the joke aside, let’s unpack this stew of contradictions.
First, the Colonel accuses us of politicizing the Armed Forces—while issuing a clearly political press release in the name of the Armed Forces. If GAF is truly “apolitical,” why the public tantrum? Surely the professional approach would have been to provide verifiable facts, outline policy, or—better yet—remain dignified in silence. Instead, we got a sound and fury signifying very little, dressed in military uniform.
Secondly, their insistence on calling the State House theft an “isolated incident” is perhaps the most amusing euphemism in the statement. I imagine if a foreign soldier had stolen documents or weaponry, we’d call it a “rare procedural hiccup.” Theft of food may sound trivial to the untrained eye, but for those who understand security culture, even stolen sugar is symptomatic of a sour system.
And let us not forget the bit about “dragging the GAF into political discourse.” With respect, GAF marched itself into this discourse boots first when it stationed fully armed soldiers at a civilian checkpoint, shielded foreign troops who commit offenses on Gambian soil, and then published an unsolicited public rebuke of two citizens. In case the Colonel missed the civics class: when military actions affect civil liberties, the military enters the political realm by default.
Nowhere in the press release was there an attempt to address the core issues raised:
– Why is Denton Bridge still militarized in a country at peace?
– Why does the State House need foreign protection?
– Why were the citizens kept in the dark about a theft within the heart of government security?
Instead, the response was an assortment of chest-thumping, self-praise, and moral finger-wagging—peppered with an unsubtle threat to media houses like West Coast Radio for platforming dissent. Colonel Sanyang even called on the media to exercise “restraint” and avoid “dragging” the military into politics—ironically while dragging himself to the podium with political flair. What next? Shall we ask journalists to pre-submit their questions to the Ministry of Truth?
Perhaps the most telling line was the one urging us to “desist from such practices” or risk undermining “national cohesion.” A beautiful phrase, if only it weren’t so dangerously close to “shut up or else.” The weaponization of patriotism to stifle accountability is an old trick in the dictator’s handbook. For an institution under democratic control, this kind of language is not just immature—it’s alarming.
Let me assure the Colonel and anyone else listening: no amount of uniformed posturing will prevent concerned Gambians from asking why our own soldiers are benched while foreigners patrol our presidential grounds. Nor will it stop us from wondering why a bridge into the capital feels more like a checkpoint in a war zone. If questioning this status quo is “unethical,” then perhaps we should redefine ethics altogether.
In conclusion, the press release would have been more useful had it simply admitted: “We have no good answers at this time.” That would have been refreshingly honest, even admirable. Instead, what we got was a masterclass in how not to respond to criticism—defensive, dismissive, and dripping with contradictions.
If anything, the Armed Forces’ response has validated the very concerns it sought to dismiss. For in its panicked prose, we saw not professionalism, but petulance or bad temper; not reform, but regression.
And so, Colonel Sanyang, rather than warning us to “desist,” perhaps consider this: in a democracy, the uniform does not shield one from scrutiny—it invites it. Especially when the people are still waiting to see whether our national security is in the hands of patriots… or public relations officers with thin skin.
