By Alf Soninke
This week, GRTS TV reported that Religious Affairs Minister Hamat Bah hosted a meeting in his office.
The issue: to get one imam to apologize to the Manjago community for remarks he reportedly made three years ago.
It was learned from the same news item that, strangely, someone else, another person – not the accused imam – had posted the remarks on social media.
The minister then summoned the imam to his office and asked him to apologize, which he did on camera.
Meanwhile, the person who posted the supposedly offensive statement on social media was not identified in the news report nor by the minister’s office, and was not seen to be held accountable.
And, you may want to ask why they did not go after that person or the medium which published the supposedly offensive statement!
And, about Hamat Bah calling the meeting, we want to ask further whether – going by his own record – Hamat Bah was fit to convene and preside at such a meeting?
We heard him in the news item pontificating about making someone apologize for calling Manjagos “unbelievers” – a characterization Muslims routinely utter against all non-Muslims – and prosecuting him should he fail to do so.
And you wonder under what law, since the Bah himself told us in the same breath that a bill was being prepared for such matters.
And would it be fair to ask, here and now, whether Hamat Bah, the NAM Jawara, and others before them (Dembo By Force?) should be among the first to be charged and arraigned under the law reportedly being contemplated by the Barrow administration?
That is, if only it were possible to make it retroactive!
Meanwhile, the accused imam, apparently easier to victimize, was now being paraded and humiliated in front of the GRTS cameras (like they did in the Second Republic) – usually the mindset of government officials – to teach others a lesson?
The meeting shown on TV was attended by the heads of the Supreme Islamic Council and Gambia Christian Council, among others.
Representatives of the Manjago community in the Gambia, led by its head, identified as one Alhage…Gomez attended.
Thankfully, Gomez, in his remarks, pointed out that the issue was a not a religious matter, but concerned words directed at the Manjago community as an ethnic group.
Thus, you wonder why they then involved the Religious Affairs Ministry and national religious councils.
And you also wonder whether Hamat Bah abused his power and office by convening such a meeting to compel the imam to self-incriminate.
For Hamat Bah asserted that the man would have been prosecuted, but it was later decided to give him a chance, bring him to his office, and make him apologize.
He went on to declare that the Gambia government was, in fact, right now processing a bill which would address remarks deemed as hate speech, etc when uttered in this country.
And, talking of apologizing and prosecution for uttering statements deemed to be unfair attacks on ethnic groups in the country, one wonders if Hamat Bah would – under such law, if only it were possible to make it retroactive – be among the first to be charged.
Especially following and based on his recent and latest attacks on the Mandinkas and Gambians of Lebanese origin at the recent NPP rally in Farafenni!
The same could be said of the remarks delivered in the Kaur area of the lower Saloum NAM Jawara, who, on national TV, voiced support and amplified Hamat Bah’s utterances at the NPP alliance rally held there.
Jawara, who has since reportedly apologized on Facebook, for behavior believed by all right-thinking persons to be unbecoming of a so-called “honorable” member of the Gambian legislature!
Now, the reader may also not note well that Jawara’s remarks were made during what was supposed to be the ongoing meet-the-people tour 2026 – not during the time for the purely partisan official hustings authorized by the IEC under the laws of the Gambia.
This annual state-funded tour is for Adama Barrow to meet, at least once a year, communities of Gambians in all corners of the country, strictly for the purposes sanctioned by the constitution.
However, it’s plain for all to see that the tour this year – deliberately scheduled just five weeks before the December 5 presidential election – is being misused by Barrow for campaigning for re-election for a third term.
And this is happening before the IEC has formally announced the official campaigning period.
So we all see Barrow and his NPP alliance, as usual, jumping the gun and engaging in the latest in a string of recorded instances of blatant abuse of incumbency!
