Not content with his current titles — His Excellency, the President, Sheik, professor, Alhaji, Doctor — Yahya Jammeh wants to be crowned King of The Gambia.
And the president of the tiny Anglophone West African state has enlisted traditional leaders in his cause.
According to the ÂAssociated Press news agency, Junkung Camara, the chief of the Foni Brefet region, is travelling around the country explaining to bemused Gambians that the president has brought development to the country and so deserves to be crowned king.
“This is the only way the Gambian people can express our gratitude to a leader who has done a lot for his country,” said Camara.
Jammeh already has some remarkable achievements to his name. A few years ago he announced that he had found a cure for HIV/Aids — a concoction of bananas and herbs which, according to his website, comprises “seven plants, three of which are not from Gambia”.
Obsession
Jammeh’s bid for kingship recalls the Central African Republic’s notorious despot, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who, after a lavish coronation in 1977, became Bokassa I of Central Africa.
The obsession with honorifics also calls to mind Malawi’s former dictator, Hastings Banda, whose full title was His Excellency the Life President of the Republic of Malawi, Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda (Ngwazi means “chief of chiefs” or “great lion”).
Jammeh, born in 1965, already behaves like an absolute monarch, hounding opponents and persecuting journalists.
Years ago he ordered the country’s media professionals to obey his government “or go to hell”. He has also told Gambians that he has allowed them “too much expression”.
A few years ago he gave Gambia’s homosexuals 24 hours to leave the country or he would “cut off the head” of any gay Âperson.
“Any hotel, lodge or motel that lodges this kind of individual will be closed down, because this act is unlawful,” he said. “We are in a Muslim-dominated country and I will not and shall never accept such individuals.”
Witch-hunt
Witches are high on his list of undesirables. Last year he rounded up a thousand “witches” and forced them to drink a concoction that led to the death of two of them and kidney ailments in others.
Jammeh has a simple view of democracy: “I will develop the areas that vote for me, but if you don’t vote for me, don’t expect anything.”
It is, therefore, no surprise that he has been elected three times since the coup that brought him to power.
Why not dispense with elections altogether?