"To ensure that the prison service served his purposes, former President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh ensured that persons appointed to leadership positions in the prison service had some form of loyalty to him, either through family or ethnic ties. Academic qualifications “did not matter," TRRC report states.
"What was important to Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh was that he would appoint someone who would carry out his unlawful instructions without question."
"He appointed David Colley to the position of Director General in 1997 even though he was unqualified for the position."
"In his own testimony, David Colley claimed that he was a “graduate of Grade 9”, meaning that he had completed three years of the upper basic cycle schooling, even though that grading system did not exist in the examination system of the country in 1972 (the period he claimed to have sat to the examination)," the report added.
"Despite the lack of qualification and the fact that he was removed from the position on two occasions and even incarcerated in the same prison that he headed, David Colley bounced back and survived to become the longest serving Director General of The Gambia Prison Service."
"His eligibility for the position was that he hailed from Kanilai (the former president’s home village). They grew up together and are from the same ethnic group."
"Lamin Korta, a retired officer of The Gambia Prison Service, said in his testimony to the Commission that he was enrolled in the prison service before the former DG David Colley – who was only a barkeeper at the prison at the time – and attributed the promotion of David Colley to the relationship between the former President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh and David Colley (both natives of Kanilai village)."
“This ethnic and community relationship was also confirmed by Ansumanna Manneh, current Director General of Prison Service, in his testimony to the Commission.”
"Between 1994 and beginning of 2017, the selection of prison officers and management was largely based on ethnic considerations, as well as nepotism."
Witnesses testified that during that period, the directors were hand-picked by the former President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, often without the requisite qualifications.
According to the testimony of several witnesses, the staff of the prisons were disproportionately of Jola ethnicity and largely from Kanilai and surrounding villages, with many allegedly related to the former president.
Those who were recruited and promoted without due process were more likely to follow unlawful instructions. According to witness testimonies, those who did not come into the prison administration through the right channels were more prone to just follow the instructions of those who brought them in than what the law, regulations, service and training require.
"One of the witnesses told the Commission that David Colley recruited his close relatives. His nephew Modou Jarju benefitted from accelerated promotion when he was promoted to the position of the Deputy Director General."
"This situation was succinctly described by Ebrima Ismaila Chongan who stated that appointing “semi-illiterate persons to important positions led to mediocrity within the prison."
