The Gambia as a country has completely completely since the days of innocent political banter. The junta headed by Yahya Jammeh cornered Gambian citizens into a condition of political muteness. The creation of the NIA has made all discussions about the APRC and its party Leader AJJ Jammeh a taboo in the Gambia as intelligence agents got involved.

The Gambia's agents aren't just limited to the back streets of the Gambia, they are also online, in the cyber space. The mind game. Decent and intelligent Gambians interested in engaging in online debates are targeted by this unscrupulous agents. Each debater is targeted and the game is to identify who the individual person is. The next step is to use commentaries that will anger the debater writing about the APRC and Yahya to explain who he is. from there on, the online agents will try to divert attention from important discussions to trivial personal attacks. This is all part of the game.

When issues are personalised, rational discussions lose grounds. And the online cyber agent is achieving one part of his role, that is to divert attention. The second step is to push the debater to say who is.
As the intelligent agents will tell you, " each target is hated". To neutralise a target, that is the online writer critical of Yahya's government, his whereabout and identity become key. If the writer loses his guards and expose himself, then the online agent achieves his goal, that is a scoop.

He will then mail the details to his office and that innocent soul is now on the entry/exit Gambia watch. This mind game has killed the much coveted Gambian democracy. The many online writers are now aware of this inherent dangers. Each writer would rather use ghost names and not be known than use their real identity and be found out. What is the reason for tracing Gambians identity online?

There are many reasons. But the few apparent ones are: to disable all potential critics and thus limit the damage to Yahya's coveted image, and to create a climate of fear and control. The old method of creating lots of cowards is powerful. Many dictators resort to that techniques. In many parts of Africa and the Middle East, this method is highly in use. Gambians have unfortunately, joined this club.
Another reason is to continue mystifying the power of the country's leader. The intelligent agents make the leader invincible. That invincibility provides an air of authority and thus, leads to an unprecedented myth in our society. He [Jammeh] assumes higher powers. On seeing the leader, the fear factor cripes into our sub-conscious mind. This stops leading journalists, activists, opposition members and the rest of the country from writing and talking about the 'leader's' mismanagement and incompetence. Silence becomes the only best solution to avoid being humiliated and disgraced or even being killed.

The mind game. Are yahya's agents wining the battle? No, not very much. Many brave Gambians have seen the trick and have refused to be silenced. Silence means complacency. It means inability and cowardliness. And even prophets of God used to pray against cowardliness. It makes people useless and lazy.

A band of mixture of young and veteran writers from the Gambian community rose up to the challenges posed by the tyrant yahya and his evil agents - the phenomenon of the Gambian online newspapers was born. The many brave editors and commentators took the tough stance and they are leading the way. Gambians have regained their voice from shores afar. Notable papers are thegambiaecho.com, thegambianjournal.com, allgambian.net, senegambianews.com and other online forums. This folks have sacrificed their time, energy and income to show the agents of Yahya that NO ONE CAN STOP THE ONLINE NEWS FLOW.

Day in day out, good articles emanate from the likes of Mathew K Jallow and other brilliant writers reminding Gambians of the immense issues at stake. This give us warm feelings and hope.

The people are the winners of the online mind game. Let the agents join us and bring down Yahya's tyranny. The Gambia even if we are poor, but at least we can have our peace of mind; God's gift to mankind that no one can take away from us.