When exiled former President Yahya Jammeh threatened to “annihilate or deport” The Gambia’s Mandinkas to Mali, the NPP’s chief strategist Lamin Cham used this threat of Jammeh’s as one of the deadliest weapons in his arsenal to canvass for votes for the opposition Coalition.
However, the question that rushes to mind is: Would Mr. Cham be able to go back to the Mandinka communities to canvass for votes for the National People’s Party following Seedy Njie’s own admission of orchestrating the persecution of members of the country’s largest ethnic group based on their tribe.
Top NPP official Seedy Njie recently boasted in a family meeting that he prevented the promotion of two senior public servants because of their Mandinka ethnic background. This has angered Mandinkas across The Gambia, including senior Mandinka figures of his party.
In the run-up to the 2016 general election, NPP’s campaign manager, who was the youth president of the United Democratic Party (UDP), latched onto Jammeh’s threat against Mandinkas to whip up anti-Jammeh sentiments across many Mandinka settlements. He reportedly succeeded in convincing many Mandinkas that if Jammeh’s threat was anything to go by, then the future of Mandinkas in The Gambia was going to be bleak.
Fast-forward to 2026, a senior member of the party that Mr. Cham was instrumental in forming has bragged of singing from Jammeh’s song-sheet when it comes to the persecution of Mandinkas.
For nearly 32 years now, members of The Gambia’s majority ethnic group remained marginalized in many sectors. Former President Yahya Jammeh gave undue advantages to members of his tribe and other minority tribes, regarding recruitment and promotion in the military, police and other national security outfits. Jammeh also offered plomb government jobs to his tribesmen undeservedly.
Saihou Mballow, who once described President Barrow as not of free-born and is currently serving as an advisor to the President, early this year suggested in a Fula community meeting that President Barrow was singing from Jammeh’s hymn book.
Mballow bragged to his Fula kinsmen from Guinea Conakry that they needed not to fear anything in The Gambia because the SIS chief is a Fula and that the Fulas are the powerhouse of the national police and immigration department.
As Gambians return to the polls in a little over six months’ time to elect their president, NPP’s chief propagandist Lamin Cham could find himself in an awkward position when he faces members of his own tribe on the campaign trail after using almost a decade ago Jammeh’s tribal utterances against the former president as one of the lethal weapons in his armoury.
