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Image: Domestic workers being illegally advertised for sale or rent

|Times Newspapers reports how “Maids are trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market”|

By Shayma Bakht, Riyadh

She will work day and night and does not need rest, boasts Noura, a housewife in Riyadh. Gesturing to the cowering Ugandan maid next to her, who is 23 according to Noura, she adds: “If she does something wrong, you just send her to her room and do not let her out.”

Noura, who clutches gold Gucci sunglasses as she bargains for a price of £3,500 for the maid, is eager for a quick deal when she talks to an undercover Times reporter. “I can take her to your home tonight,” she says. “If you are still unsure, no problem, you can rent her instead . . . But tell me now, because by tomorrow someone else will buy her.”

Image: Dave Manneh

By Dave Manneh and Abdoukarim Sanneh for The Brufut Land Restitution Secretariat   

Mr Njie,       

You gave a lecture on “conscience” - the other week. We learned about it late but hope you will accept our excuse for coming to the party a little late.  

You are keeping up the pretences - we see.  

Despite familiarity with the fairy-tale of the genesis of your wealth, we watched the “lecture” with an open mind. We had assumed with time your conscience and moral fibre would have been fortified - thus ennobling you to admit your errors and make amends.  

You were in scintillating form - and captivated your impressionable audience - no doubt. You looked resplendent in that colourful and flowing Nyetti Abdu. The crown-like perching of the Aboki hat on your head added a certain symbolic paradox to your sartorial choice. Crowned emperor of [fill-in-the-gaps]! Perhaps?  The missing element was a griot ensemble - headed by a hallam player and backup women vocalists - belting out “Njai Jatta Njai, Gaindeh Njai, Alburr Njai, Njai Kulli Jatta Njai.”           

As abstract concepts, both the substance and the delivery were faultless. But those in awe either are oblivious of your past or chose to disregard it. The theatrical interlacing of the teachings of prophet Muhammed (PBUH) with Wollof philosophical musings, stroked a chord with many in attendance, we sensed. To communities in Yundum and Brufut, understandably, the performance was a masterclass in deceit. 

Though not unique to you, the predominance of “Muslims” in The Gambia must have featured high in your calculations. Hence, though the performance was an exemplar in impression management, one wonders if the deeper symbolism was not its object lesson in hypocrisy and insincerity. As a test of the growth of a moral backbone or the awakening of a dormant conscience, however, the speech fell short.       

We suspect publicly expressing contrition was daunting - or mustering the courage to come clean on the specifics of the Yarambamba and Brufut projects overwhelming. But it was a missed opportunity, nonetheless. 

These lands are significant, as they are the singular source of your prominence and prosperity. You used them as collateral to secure loans from ShelterAfrique and other investors. The provision of those loans catapulted you from an aspiring developer into the big league. The result: the “Taf Global Africa” empire. 

There is a social context to why what happened has happened: a material wealth-poor Gambia and many a Gambian apathetic and complacent. Added to this triune of deficiencies is the devastating effect of the social malaise of callousness and depraved indifference. Permitting belief systems to hijack logic compounded by the creeping normalisation of a “transactional” culture does nothing against the shattering of communal social fabric. 

These factors are the underbelly of the ecosystem that enables the “rich and powerful” to use their wealth with efficient expediency. Affluent persons whose dubious wealth would ordinarily make them bywords for iniquity are instead celebrated and feted as saviors. To maintain the pretence, such persons fall back on cultivating certain mythical personas - embroidering and weaving their biographies through curated narratives and perpetuation of fallacies. 

For perspective: many would have never heard of Mustapha Njie, give you the time of day - without the proceeds from those lands. You would not have gained an army of “dubious influence peddlers” and “social influencers” who hero-worship you.  Some do so in craven calculations of benefitting from your “philanthropy,” whilst for others it is a case of shaky ethical and moral foundations. Whatever the motivations of each subgroup, their perception of you as their benefactor fit into the performative benevolence that is prevalent among us.  

The composition of the latter subgroup is quite interesting. It is the cognitively dissonant diasporic/transnational, “educated” class - who flaunt their anti-Jammeh “struggle” battle scars and credentials with great fanfare. Yet they express admiration for people who enabled Jammeh’s tyranny, and worse, whose current status are a result of abuse of rights.  

To us, this is the paradox of these “diaspora strugglers.”  

Mr Njie, you owe your exalted position and prestige thanks to abuse of fundamental rights, violence, and the threat of violence the dictatorship hung over the plundered communities. A servile security service, coupled with an emasculated judiciary, further enabled the autocracy to bend both important and fundamental legal strictures. We had judicial despotism in all but name. 

Mr Njie, you would agree that the confiscation of swathes of ten-plus [10+] and thirty-plus [30+] hectares in the most desirable and expensive areas of The Gambia is bad enough. It is unjustifiable to give these to a single individual. It contravenes all codes of propriety - including the substantive issue of lawfulness - in transgression of the inviolability of private property. 

The nature and scale of the expropriation remains an outlier in our nation’s history. At conservative estimates, it is akin to emptying communal coffers off tens of millions of US dollars and gifting it to you. In financial terms, this is what you might call an incredible windfall return on investment. This speaks to the staggering scale of the thievery. 

This is the consequential bit of your back story. The rest are mere embellishments, fabrications, and myths. 

To continue to hide behind Jammeh’s excesses is both unacceptable and unreasonable. To profess innocence in this abuse will not withstand the slightest scrutiny. And neither can it add legitimacy to your enrichment of self at the expense of these Kombo families.  

Our inheritance is the seedbed of your prosperity - and the engine of your intergenerational wealth-creating behemoth. We, therefore, will not relent in our pursuit of justice and accountability. The reason for this stubborn determination is obvious: the past most often informs the present and sometimes foretells the future.  </s