The Daily Observer (Banjul)
Assan Sallah & Hatab Fadera
28 October 2008
A dramatic scene unfolded on Monday 22nd September, 2008, when a Nigerian national, Mr Paulino Car widely known as Bola Johnson, collapsed and died at the Banjul Magistrates' Court, while trying to settle the ongoing court case between his wife Salimatou Jallow and Lawyer Sheriff Tambedou, over the sale of a vehicle, at the Banjul Magistrates' Court.
Mr Bola was immediately rushed to the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital (RVTH) in Banjul, where he was confirmed dead.
Reliable sources reaching the Daily Observer, revealed that Mr Bola Johnson went to the court to negotiate and handover a Toyota Highlander, 2008 Model 4-wheel drive car, belonging to his wife Salimatou Jallow, to Lawyer Sheriff Tambedou.
Sources further revealed that Salimatou Jallow sold the car to Lawyer Tambedou at a sum of US$25,000 (twenty-five thousand US dollars) but had refused to handover the vehicle, which resulted to the court case. Below are reactions of conflict involving the two parties on this intriguing issue:
When contacted, Lawyer Tambedou said he did not have any case with any Nigerian, adding that he had a case against one Salimatou Jallow, the wife of Mr Bola Johnson, a Nigerian, for failing to handover the vehicle he bought from her.
According to Lawyer Tambedou, he gave US$21,000 to Salimatou Jallow after they had made an agreement that he would complete payment of the remaining balance (US$4,000), two weeks from the time he received the car. He then added that Mrs Jallow failed to honour the agreement and he decided to take up the matter with the court.
"When the case was called in court, she was not there and the court issued an order for the vehicle to be impounded and she was also ordered to cooperate with the Sheriff's Division in order to provide the location of the said vehicle. She refused to comply.
The case was adjourned to Friday, September 19th, 2008. I came to court and applied for her (Salimatou Jallow) to be confined to prison for contempt of the court. The case was then adjourned to 22nd September, 2008, for her to come and tell the court why she should not be indited for contempt," Lawyer Tambedou explained.
According to him, "This this gentleman then came and identified himself as Mr Bola, a Nigerian national and said he was Salimatou Jallow's husband. He talked to me and we agreed that he would bring the car and give it to me, in order to prevent his wife from going to prison. We agreed that he would give me the car and I would give him the balance of the money [US$4,000]. He left and in the afternoon, he called me to say that he was on his way to the Magistrates' Court to handover the vehicle. When he came, we went to the Magistrates' Court and he gave me the keys to the vehicle. As I was about to give him the money, he collapsed and then I stopped a taxi to rush him to RVTH in Banjul," Lawyer Tambedou narrated.
He told the Daily Observer that he had paid the remaining US$ 4,000 to the court and added that the cause of Mr Bola's sudden death will be revealed by the result of the post-mortem.
Meanwhile, when the Daily Observer contacted the police for possible comments on the issue, ASP Sulayman Secka, the public relations officer of the Gambia Police Forces (GPF), said the police investigations are in progress. He added that their investigating team will be well equipped when they get the results of the post mortem.
In an interview with the Daily Observer, Magistrate Kayode Olajubutu, former Magistrate of the Banjul Magistrates' Court who identified himself as a witness to this case, said the matter is now before him, adding that he is now transferred to the Brikama Magistrates' Court..
According to him, the matter is a case that was filed in court against one Salimatou Jallow, for the recovery of a car."In fact the matter was pending. I went on leave and I came back and I still met the file. Now the claim was read to the defendant (Salimatou Jallow) and the defendant said "I admit, but I have sold the car to another person two days ago." So I told her that if she is admitting liability then how can she say she have sold the car to another buyer two days ago. Now, that means you have the car and you have the money.
The defendant also admitted that Lawyer Sheriff Tambedou paid US$21,000, (twenty one thousand dollars). I told her there is another application which Lawyer Tambedou made in his claim. The application is that the car should be brought to court. So I ordered that the car should be brought to the custody of the court. Now there was a problem there too because this woman claimed that she had sold the car to somebody who lives in Serrekunda.
So in my order, I specifically ordered that an officer of the Sheriff Division should make sure that the car is brought to court. So an officer by the name Lamin Saidy went with her. Now Lamin Saidy came back the following day when the case was adjourned, and reported that when he went with the woman, the woman took him to uncompleted buildings in Banjul. So that gave the court an impression that this woman was not saying the truth. I then reminded her whether she know the implications of lying to the court? So she was in other words flouting the order of the court. Thereafter the case was adjourned and infact the bailiff came to report that the woman did not come to court.
She sent a medical paper to the court that she was sick. The medical paper was signed by one Dr. Dumbuya but the medical paper did not indicate what sickness she is suffering from, it just stated 2 weeks absent from work. Lawyer Tambedou now made another application before the court that this woman should be committed to prison for contempt but I emphasised that the woman should rather show course why she should not be committed to prison but the woman failed to come to the court, I remembered it was on Friday. She stopped coming to court.
That was the last day the case was adjourned till Monday. Now on Sunday, Lawyer Secka called me to say he was going to appear in the matter, I told him thats the situation of the case, this woman has refused to obey the order of the court, and I must say this; an order of the court is never disobey, they are meant to be obeyed. I am saying this with all the emphasis at my disposal that no order of court is to be taken with levity, they have to be obeyed, otherwise, the whole judiciary system becomes a mockery," Magistrate Kayode Olabujutu narrated.
"Now on Monday, when the case resumed, the woman did not come to court, meanwhile, the deceased (Bola Johnson) came to court on Monday to inform me that he was the husband of this woman (Salimatou Jallow) and that Tambedou was owing them US$4,000 on the sale of that car. He said he was ready to bring the car to court if Tambedou will pay the balance.
" well I told them they (the deceased and Tambedou) can go and talk because the court is also supposed to encourage settlement of cases outside the court if it is possible. The man (deceased) presented himself as the husband of the defendant and I said whatever settlement you are making, that car must be brought to court. So they went and later came back and reported that they have been able to reach the settlement and the same man (the deceased) undertook to bring the car to court before the close of work on Monday, so they left.
So after 3' 0'clock in the afternoon when I was about to close, Lawyer Tambedou came in and told me ,"Well your worship you should exercise some patient, the man just called now to say that he was at Denton Bridge coming with the car" and I waited and they both came into my office and the man said to me that he was serious,and handed over the car keys and that the car is downstairs. I then told Mr.
Tambedou the ball is in his court. Mr. Tambedou replied that he had with him US$4,000, the two thousand is in dollars and the other two thousand is in dalasis, and asked whether the man would like to take it that way? The man said he would rather take it all in dollars because tomorrow morning, he would be travelling out of this place to come back on Saturday. So Mr. Tambedou stood up and he (Tambedou) was calling somebody who would convert that money into dollars.
This man (the deceased) was not looking sick, he was not complaining of anything, he was sitting down and then all of a sudden, he went down and urinated and infact everybody was shocked, Mr. Tambedou was calling his [the deceased's] wife [Salimatou Jallow], to say whether this thing had ever happened to him before. I thought it was epilepsy or so. So I was trying to sprinkle water, my orderly came and everybodyelse. For me I have never seen that kind of thing before. Like you having hiccups or somebody struggling to breath. I went down to call for help; my orderly went to the fire service to call them for help. Then as they were carrying him to the hospital, his wife [Salimatou Jallow] who was all the time running away from the courts appeared. That is as far as the case goes but it is very unfortunate that such an incident happened in the court of law and so many unpaintable things have been said but then people are free to run their mouths," he stated.
Magistrate Kayode then quoted the Guardian journal, saying "Conscience is an open wound, only the truth can heal it."The next day, the police came and I personally signed the request for a post mortem to be conducted," he revealed.
Magistrate Kayode also denied accusations from Salimatou Jallow that her late husband Paulino Car commonly known as Bola Johnson bribed him (Magistrate Kayode) with an amount of D30, 000 to settle the case amicably.
Magistrate Kayode finally referred the Daily Observer to the case file of this matter at the Banjul Magistrates' Court for more details.
For her part, Salimatou Jallow alias Sally Jallow who walked into the Daily Observer offices, said there was some foul play in the death of her husband.Mrs Jallow told the Daily Observer that she sold a 'Toyota Highlander, 2008 model' to Sheriff Tambedou.
"The vehicle (Toyota Highlander) and other vehicles were at the Ports Authority in Banjul, then my late husband (Bola Johnson) was in America. The proprietor of St.
Mary's Food and Wine introduced me to Sheriff Tambedou.
He told me that Sheriff Tambedou wanted to buy a Toyota Highlander 2008 model in America. So he explained it to Sheriff Tambedou and they approached me about the issue. I told Sheriff Tambedou that the vehicle is at the Ports and I need money to take it from the Ports and sell it. According to her she then asked how much am I going to sell the vehicle for.
I replied US $40,000 and he said that is expensive, we later agreed to peg the price at US $25,000 and that the customs duties will be shared equally between the two of us. He asked me how much do I need to get the vehicle out and sell it, I replied US $ 20,000.
He said he will give me US $20,000 and if the vehicle is out from the Ports then he will complete his payment of US $5,000 and half of the Customs duties. When he gave me the US $20,000, I paid for the shipping agent and others. So when the time came for the payment of the Customs duties we began to have problems because he said he had never promised to pay part of the Custom duties. That was when we began to have problems", she narrated.
Mrs Jallow also told the Daily Observer that she sold the same car to one Ousainou Joof in Serrekunda to enable her get money to pay the Customs and duties and make other necessary arrangements to get the car out of the Ports Authority premises.
According to her, after selling the same car to Ousainou Joof, she intended to return Lawyer Tambedou's money but Lawyer Tambedou told her that he needs the car and not his money back.
On the issue of absenteeism from the court, Mrs Jallow said she was admitted at the Westfield Clinic, then she was about to deliver. She added that it was Dr. Dumbuya who wrote an 'ED' paper, (meaning exempted from duty) for her, which according to her, was taken to the court by her father. She also accused Magistrate Olajubutu and Lawyer Tambedou of having an affair into her husband's death.
Ms Jallow also disclosed to the Daily Observer that her late husband (Bola Johnson) bribed Magistrate Olajubutu D30, 000, just for him to settle the case amicably. She finally told the Daily Observer that she was the very one, together with a fire service officer who escorted her husband to the hospital. She revealed that Lawyer Tambedou and Magistrate Olajubutu ran away and left her husband there, when he collapsed.
In another development, a group of Nigerians residing in The Gambia, on Tuesday, September 23rd 2008, stormed the premises of the Nigerian Embassy in Bakau Newtown, where they lodged complaints with the officials of the Embassy over the sudden death of one of their fellow national [Bola Johnson] in The Gambia, whom they claimed died in an unusual way.
However, the angry looking Nigerians at the Embassy were not ready to give any information to the press, as they wanted to remain anonymous.
Meanwhile, Obase B Okongor, the minister and head of Chancellery at the Nigerian Embassy, told the Daily Observer that the visit of the Nigerian nationals in The Gambia to the Embassy was not in anyway a protest, but a move to inform the Embassy of the development. He noted that though the story was news to them, they had taken note of the complaints lodged by their citizens, which, he said, prompted the Embassy to send an official on a fact finding mission to the Gambian authorities.
Asked to explain the circumstances surrounding the death of the deceased, Mr Okongor indicated that the Embassy could not ascertain any information about the story, as the deceased was not personally known to the Embassy."We were just informed about it, and that's why we sent our official to make findings from The Gambian authorities about the whole issue," he concluded.
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