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Gambia: Can the NIA Be Changed for the Better?

Just about a month ago, in the middle of November, the broom of President Jammeh's incessant purges again hit the NIA (National Intelligence Agency), removing its Director General Harry Sambou and replacing him with another "professional", Mr. Pa Jallow. Both Messrs Sambou and Jallow are the so-called professional spy chiefs.

They have both had university training in security and intelligence-related matters, unlike the two other types of intelligence chiefs; those like Kebba Ceesay, Samba Bah, Daba Marenah and Foday Barry who came into the service after long years in the police force, or Abdoulai Kujabi who was a politico brought in due to one or the other artificial affinity to President Jammeh.

The NIA was established by a 1995 decree after its predecessor agency National Security Services (NSS) was scrapped in the aftermath of the coup that brought Yahya Jammeh into power in July 1994. The decree gave the new institution, unlike its predecessor, powers of arrest and detention. Two years later this decree was incorporated into the 1997 constitution, Chapter 12, section 191 of which has an economical two paragraph text on it that runs:

(1) There shall be a National Institution Agency which shall be under the commnand of the President.

(2)Subject to any Act of the National Assembly and the provisions of the constitution, the National Intelligence Agency shall be governed by the National Intelligence Decree 1995.

Eleven years after its inception, the NIA is yet to shed off its trademark of terror that came with the illegality of the transition era of 1994 to 1997 in which it was conceived. Since then perhaps tens of thousands of people have passed through its detention dungeons and torture chambers. In short, the NIA has been the pinnacle of President Jammeh's reign of terror and intimidation. The mere mention of that sequence of alphabets strikes terror in the mind of most Gambians. But apart from its use as a political instrument, the NIA has also been a general purpose institution that is available for hire, for all from debt collection, settling of personal scores, civil and community disputes, extortion and, you name it. It goes without saying that because of its expanded role, the institution has become steeped in corruption, a potential threat to its efficiency and its capability to carry out its core mandate of providing security to the state and the nation. Some in the Jammeh administration have long realized this and have called for reforming the institution.

First to allude to this need publicly was former Director General and now allegedly missing person, Mr. Daba Marenah. Speaking in a political rally in Kinteh Kunda Janneh Ya in the lower Badibou, two years ago Saturday January 3rd 2004, Mr. Marenah said that, "People who claim to be closed to President Jammeh should use the opportunity to help the President to develop the nation. In doing so they should be transparent in their activities." Coming from the old police school of thought that is more interested in the character of individuals than the framework of institutions, Mr. Marenah was addressing the same issue in different words that current Director Pa Jallow is trying to tackle.

Since he took over only a month ago Gambians, and most especially their media, have been full of hopes that the new Director General will curb the NIA's excessive illegality, downsize the agency, weed out the corrupt and "mercenary" elements and turn it into a truly professional agency dedicated to its mandate of providing state security. Already he has got rid of about three dozen employees of the agency and, as many believe, seen to it that about twenty six detainees from the Forestry Department released. He has also been recorded saying that the Agency will try to abide by the 72 hour detention limit of the laws of the country. Can Mr. Jallow succeed where Marenah failed? Marenah was after all a veteran police officer who steadily became, after his stint as governor in the URD, both the Director General of the NIA and an important confidant and political adviser to President Jammeh until the March 21st alleged coup attempt. In December 2004 he was able to persuade President Jammeh against making a mass arrest of ruling APRC Members of the National Assembly when they threatened to vote against a bill that increased the salaries of Secretaries of State but left the allowances of National Assembly Members without any increments. Just about six months later he conducted the mediation that brought back disgraced Yankuba Touray back to Jammeh's fold. So there are some who doubt that Mr. Jallow has any chance of bringing about the required reforms. Some believe that Mr. Jallow has a chance but many doubt this.

The doubters base their argument on their belief that President Jammeh is at the root of the NIA problem. He has "personalized the institution and turn it into arm of terror, not of the state, but his tyrannical, vindictive and petty-minded self", an NIA source, of course speaking under conditions of anonymity, recently told The Gambia Journal." Another source, also closed to the agency, said that either Mr. Jallow, "is scarily politically naïve or he does not mean the reforms he is now preaching." The later informant predicted that Mr. Jallow will not last six months in his position. Whatever, Mr. Jallow must be given all the public support he can get fro Gambians to press through with the reforms. The taming of an institution as wild and unruly as the NIA is a democratic task that must be done.