Opinion | Saul Saidykhan hammers his views on Barrow’s “Unprecedented” win, reminds him of the dangers posed on election scam!

By Saul SaidyKhan

In a leaked audio call between Barrow and an unidentified IEC official on election night, the president could be heard gushing (about his emerging electoral heist)“it’s unprecedented”!

 Indeed, it is. Never have we had an election so blatantly rigged as the December 2021 presidential election. The most unpopular president in Gambian history - the only sitting president we’ve had thus far who serially fails to elicit any cheers from citizens when he ventures out has miraculously scored the largest number of votes in the largest turnout election in our history.

 The 2021 turnout was larger than all our pre-Independence elections and even the Independence Referendum. In short, our 7 year old girl name Adama Barrow has given birth to a 9 lbs baby under the wonderful midwifery of our colorful IEC!

In another leaked audio from Barrow’s NPP Only forum, a man who didn’t fully self-identify could be heard addressing one Sainey Manneh and exhorting his colleagues to refrain from talking much about the “New System introduced”. He declared brazenly that “even if ALL the opposition coalesce, as long as the new system is in place, Barrow will win soundly”.

 Regarding the upcoming NA Election, he said “Barrow will win 48/50 seats”. UDP in particular will not win even one seat. No surprise, illiterate Gambians generally know the results announced was a sham. 

But watch our so-called educated spin nonsense. Some claim pre-election “professional” polls show Barrow winning conveniently ignoring the fact that even the most optimistic of those polls show Barrow peaking in the mid-30s. The IEC said Barrow won 53% of the vote! What professional poll misses by 17% points?

Some jokes are just too painful to read, watch, or listen to.Though Barrow and several key members of his crooked team had warned us beforehand, the scale of the chicanery is still stunning. Utilizing the magic of Google, one need not rely on another’s words to spot the industrial scale fraud perpetrated on Gambians. People live in houses, not caves in Gambia. 

These are visible structures to the naked eye and satellites. Panning our border villages around the country and referencing the Voters’ Registration for those villages and reviewing the residential units exposes the serious crime that took place all over the country. Let’s look at some samples:In the West Coast Region, the village of Kankurang in the Bondali Constituency had 1,440 registered voters. 

There is a cluster of 6 other hamlets which I assume are rolled into one since the polling location is tiny: Bulengart, Kanfenkeng, Bisari Bajonki, Bisari Madi, Jending Ba, and Kangwali.When you ignore the schools, and other non-residential structures in the 7 locations, there are less than 50 houses. Given that the majority of residents in most Gambian villages are minors, where does the 3,000 plus residents of these villages live?In the Lower River Region, the border villages of Diganteh in Jarra West (1,081 voters) and Jarra Central (1,098 voters) show similar perversion.

 In both, it’s impossible to fathom where the voters live -even factoring in a couple of neighboring villages without a polling station. In the North Bank Region, there is Nawlaru (1,171 voters.) Neighboring Chamen has it’s own station. Waya Worr and Wellingara are both further away. Where the voter population in this village live is baffling.In the CRR North, there is Jimbala Felingoh (1,028 voters) –  a village north of Kaur and Gengi Wolof both of which have their own polling stations.

 It’s the most perplexing village I’ve looked at. Despite zooming in on the location in different ways, there’s little to see in Jimbala itself though Senegal’s Jimbala (Diemballa) has clearly identifiable residences. Two small close villages – Kerr Jah and Kerr Chaindu have houses that all add up to  less than 50. How the IEC got 1,028 voters there is mysterious.

Ditto for CRR South, where the villages of Busura and Misera Toben seem to be rolled up under Maka Mbayen/Mbaien (1,214 voters.) Like the previous sample villages, it bogs the mind to fathom how the  3 villages accommodate the voting population shown.Then there is Kulary in URR (2,841 voters.) Two other villages – Sare Ngaba and Sare Hamadi seem to be rolled under Kulari.

 Regardless, unless there are houses in these villages that Google’s satellites cannot capture, it’s simply impossible to see how over 6,000 people could be living in these places.(For context, it helps to compare the Voters figure for a border village with a much larger interior village in the same Constituency. For example Keneba v. Nioro Jattaba in W. Kiang Constituency.) 

The Voters; Roll in ALL these places clearly suggest serious padding by adding of foreigners to the list.Population density is high in urban Gambia, but  even there, it’s impossible to see how every single house in an area can accommodate a minimum of 20 people plus. Yet, going by the IEC registration figures, some of our border villages house nothing less than 35-50 people each! Don’t take my word for it, if you care for the truth and claim to be educated, verify this for yourself.

Yet the Hassan Jallow-led Supreme Court don’t care to hear this sample among other overwhelming evidence of fraud in the election. Interesting because Professions are supposed to care about the grain and not the chaff. “In law, Substance should always trump frivolity” a lawyer friend fumed. Why should the semantics of the president being served personally as opposed to through the normal channel he gets all other documents be more important than the president violating all known electoral and immigration laws of our country? In medicine, Doctors will never refuse to treat a patient suffering a heart attack because he is undocumented or without health insurance. In the Western financial system, the bedrock is the Materiality principle. Not all mistakes are the same.In 1982, the military government of Flight Lt JJ Rawlings arrested and summarily executed 3 High Court judges for exactly the same type of conduct Hassan Jallow spear-headed.

 That same year, Shehu Shagari’s party pulled the same type of electoral scam in Nigeria, Barrow just did. An outraged citizenry loudly cheered the military when they took corrective action only a year later by overthrowing the meek former schoolteacher. Sometimes, military intervention is the only way to prevent executive lawlessness and civil strife which is the path we’re currently on. We can’t say there are no historical lessons to learn from. Dice gone.

About Author: Saul Saidykhan, is a Finance professional, author, political scientist, essayist and a regular political commentator. He studied and lived in the US for the past three decades.

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