The Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s residence looks like a place of refuge (put emphasis on refuge) – for someone trying to hide and save himself from supposedly his own people. The many check points, the army barricades, the guard towers, the installed surveillance cameras, tall heavy concrete walls, the hundreds of security guards with their heavy machine guns, not to mention hundreds of other staff – all cramped into an area less than one mile square.
At first glance, one can be forgiven for thinking this place is housing a drug kingpin because the layer and layer of security can only attest to the protection of a wanted man, not a head of state who is truly loved and admired by his people and therefore has no need to be so far removed from the real world that his fellow country folks live in.
But then this after all is Yahya Jammeh, the most reviled Dictator in the world, who doesn’t lose a beat when it comes to killing and maiming his own people. So perhaps, he does have a good reason to hide, make himself unavailable at all times, and be very wary of these people who have come to look like strangers that he cannot trust. Here is what we saw when Faturadio took a peek inside this monster’s dungeon:
First Floor: Moroccan Sitting Room, which is where he meets guests too.
Second Floor: This is where the infamous Jamaica Room is, the place that will forever evoke unpleasant memories of a brutal man for many young Gambian girls. This is where he rapes young under-aged girls using threats, intimidation, fear, and bribery. We were surprised to find that only five short steps down is the second floor, where Zainab, the First Lady’s bedroom is located. Guards have confided in us that she rarely uses this room since she is mostly out shopping around the world for expensive personal stuff on the back of the Gambian tax payers. We therefore figured that explains Jammeh’s audacity. On the left of the First Lady’s room is a round dining table with four chairs sitting next to their daughter, Mariam Jammeh’s room on the right.
The second floor also has Mariam Jammeh’s parrots named Lilly and Kuku. Both parrots and her dog are kept in the Orderly Room also located on this floor which makes that room very stinky. Because of this bad smell, First Lady according to our source, is always unfairly blaming the Orderlies for being dirty and not keeping their room clean. “If she has any regard for these workers, why put them in the same room as their pets?” The source queried with indignation.
The Third floor: On this floor is the room that has the green leather furniture, round glass table and 75 inch flat screen TV that you all see on GRTS occasionally. Three steps from there on the left is where the kitchen is located. The room opposite the kitchen is where their son Muhammed Jammeh sleeps with his nannies, Jamila and Isatou Jammeh. Mariam Jammeh’s nanny is Yaminy. We will hasten to grudgingly add that their non-Gambian Nannies get paid $10,000 a month while their Gambian staff go home with a little less than D4,000 a month ($100).
If any think that the security staff around Jammeh is immune or exempted from abuse he metes out on innocent Gambians, you will be surprised therefore to know that he constantly beats up the Orderlies and worse; even sprays them with an insecticide each time they doze off on the job. They are given very rough chairs to sit on to make them uncomfortable – a sleep deterrent Jammeh calls it. The switchboard is manned from the Orderly Room.
The source also informed us that Jammeh hired a hunter who brings him bush meat as and when he wants it. He eats a lot of bush meat including ‘Dix’, which he loves charcoal grilled with a lot of salt. He also drinks a lot of “Kabaa” Juice and loves peanuts, maize (‘Mboha”), “Kony” and “Solom Solom”.
You be your own judge and draw your own conclusion. Our job is to report, the decision ultimately belongs to none other than you our esteemed reader.
