The State House’ Chief Protocol Officer, Alhagie Ousman Ceesay says that former president, Yahya Jammeh had a strong obsession with ‘beautiful and light-skin’ ladies to meet his sexual desire.
The Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) is currently hearing the cases of sexual and gender-based violence allegations that occurred under Jammeh’s 22 year rule.
Testifying on Monday, Ceesay, who maintains his position in the present government, recalled the recruitment of a group of female protocol officers through an executive order. He claimed to have had no knowledge of their qualifications prior to their appointments. He later realized that the majority of these young ladies were academically limited and incapable of efficiently performing their responsibilities.
Ceesay says the motive of the protocol appointments was an “open secret”.
“Well it was an open secret…let’s just say some of them are special ladies of the president. It was an open secret because at the State House, everybody would understand that the name of protocol officer was just a cover-up.”
“Some of them would come to the State House after working hours and they will go to the president – be it in Banjul, be it in Kanilai. Sundays, public holidays, it doesn’t matter,” he told the TRRC.
Ceesay discloses that, the women were called ‘special girls’ or ‘special ladies’ and he believes that the girls were stationed at the State House to satisfy the former president’s sexual pleasures.
He was given a confidential information sheet by the Counsel which contained the names and numbers of Jammeh’s sexual victims and asked to mark the names he recognized as protocol officers without calling names out for victim protection reasons.
He mentioned Jembe Jammeh, a protocol officer as the facilitator of bringing the girls into the presidency.
Ceesay stated, “Jammeh is obsessed with beautiful ladies and those with light-skin to meet his sexual desires – including Gambian nationals, other Africans and European women who sometimes stayed for a week”.
Earlier on, an anonymous female witness also testified before the TRRC as one of Jammeh’s victims, stating that the former president attempted to have sex with her. She explains that Jammeh asked her to undress as he had medicines to apply on her and she did. However, when she realized that he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her, she refused and Jammeh sent her out of his Kanilai residence.
“I used to see him as a father, a religious leader and a pan-African leader,” she said.
