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It is good to know that Ousman and his family are well. What a long time a year is! Almost exactly to the day, Ousman was interviewing me on the phone from State House Banjul – from JT’s office I think. I had been announced as the new MD of the Daily Observer but I couldn’t travel to Banjul immediately, because it was my boy Hassan’s half-term holiday in London. It is October half-term again and my boy is leaning into my arms as I write this back in London – and both Ousman and JT are across the Atlantic in USA! Yes, a year is indeed a long, long time in politics!
 I wish Ousman and his family well. The substance of his piece is very profound indeed for it concerns a man’s life. I too hope Chief Ebrima Manneh will be re-united with his family, inshallah. Chief was an excellent writer and practitioner of ethical journalism whom I had the opportunity to praise in a letter to the editor in the pages of the Daily Observer. Of course I knew him personally, though he did not work under my MD-ship. I did sit on the raised cement veranda of Fatoto Police station during my “Kotu to Koina” journey this year – and the profound thought that Chief may have sat for days on the same cement veranda did indeed cross my mind.
It would be undignified to argue minutiae with Mr. Darboe. All I can say is that within two weeks of taking over at the Daily Observer, I did give a written final warning letter (filed) to the Daily Observer’s resident “NIA man” (as he claimed!) and the letter actually said this: “If you say to any of my staff that you work for the NIA you will be terminated instantly”. This was triggered by his being rude to my deputy MD – bringing someone looking for a job into the deputy MD’s office without knocking and asking the person to have a sit to be seen! Unfortunately for the “NIA man”, the new no-nonsense MD happened to be in the deputy’s office. Later on, a clear editorial line was adopted, and published in the Daily Observer: “The buck stops with the Editor-in-Chief for anything published in the Daily Observer and only the Editor-in-Chief is responsible” – we wrote.
My staff were absolutely clear that absolutely no-one would be “picked-up” while I was boss. Once, on arriving to find a soldier standing outside the Daily Observer offices, I demanded to know what he was doing there. The uniformed soldier said he was visiting a relative. I asked him to go inside and not to stand outside as I don’t like the image and the message a soldier standing outside a newspaper office conveyed.
This is all I can say on the matter for now, and I wish everyone concerned well. It is a poignant, profound matter and I hope Chief will return to his family someday – though I say this more in hope than expectation.
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