Yusupha Cham Jollownews

By Yahya Dampha

A Gambian journalist, based in the United Kingdom, has reported receiving death threat emails from people claiming to be working with the feared Gambian intelligence body, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

Mr. Cham who worked with the Gambia base The Point Newspaper, co-founded by slain editor, Dayda Hydara, before leaving for the UK, has been running a sports website, Gamsports Online, popular among the growing Gambian sports loving population.

At the beginning of this year, Cham ventured into purely political writing when he founded Jollofnews Online, which covers Senegal and Guinea Bissau, with a stronger focus on his country, the Gambia.

It is not clear whether the alleged threats were attracted by his founding of
Jollofnews, which is increasingly becoming popular among the largely wary Gambian population both at home and abroad, as the email senders did not make mention of this online paper, but they referred to his previous writings published by other online Gambian newspapers largely critical to the Gambian government.

Accordingly, the two messages came in at an interval of 24 hours, warning him against stepping his feet on Gambian soil.

The first one, dated Friday 29 January, 2010, was received from someone who could only be indentified by his email: bjawara2000@hotmail.com. The second mail, apparently from a different author who signed as Musa Jammeh, email: musajammeh5@yahoo.com, following in on the following day, 30th January.  In both mails the author(s) is/are promising death for Mr. Cham, if he ever ventured to step on Gambian soil.

According to an Editorial on Mr Cham's site, he is ‘‘very well ready to
cooperate with any investigation regarding the matter by releasing the full details of the said mails to the relevant authorities for investigation, in an effort to help track down the people behind the act.