21/02/2024
Mr OUsainou ANM Darboe’s comments are baseless and Antagonistic—- Seedy S.K Njie.
My fellow citizens,
My style of politics has always been underpinned by respect, maturity and restraint. It has always been my view that the better and more serious politician is the one who puts across his views without being over-zealous or unmannerly. I plan on always living by this principle. Yet, I want to address UDP leader Ousainou Darboe’s attack on my person and our security forces here.
It is dishonesty and plain pretense for anyone to suggest that there is no democracy and respect for rule of law in The Gambia. Any honest, truthful, right-thinking and God-fearing Gambian will accept and appreciate the democracy and rule of law reality in The Gambia. To keep repeating that, one would be living a life of idleness.
To put it out there, I would have been one of Mr Darboe’s most celebrated men if I had accepted his invitation to join UDP. But after I declined his invitation, he settled on the only other choice: to antagonize me.
In his statement, he wrote that “since the appointment of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly in 2022, the APRC politics of weaponisation of State institutions have made a comeback”. This statement is false and unfortunate. It is fact Mr Darboe weaponised the institutions of state when he was foreign minister and vice president. He was the most powerful man in the Barrow government and presided over the worst clampdown on both perceived and real political opponents. I was in 2018 arrested and detained on the orders of Mr Darboe. It was his nephew, Muhammed Kanteh, who is a senior member of the UDP and National Assembly Member who arrested me. Appointment to positions of authority or influence both local and foreign service by his recommendations were mainly based on political,friendship, family and or tribal inclination at the expense of competence and loyalty to state. No wonder, Gambians started enjoying the fruits of good governance and unprecedented development after you were yanked out of it. Denial of permits to legally registered political parties for meetings and rallies was the order of the day when Mr Darboe was in charge of government. It was during his time APRC supporters were tear-gassed and a siege was laid to their leader’s home in Tallinding. Their leaders and members were routinely arrested , detained and charged and all these became history after Mr Darboe ceased to be a member of the government. But also, do not forget his threat against Gambian teachers, members of the security forces with dismissals. Alhamdoullillah, I have NEVER been involved in the arrest, detention and dismissal of any Gambian throughout. Any person with evidence of my involvement in the arrest, detention and dismissal of anybody is invited to come forward. I find it funny that Mr Darboe who championed the plan to ban APRC while he was in government in 2017, 2018 and 2019 is the one defending and fighting for a faction of the same APRC. It should be our collective responsibility to our constituents and country not to render it ungovernable.
As old as he is, Mr Darboe is stale and past it. There is life after politics and at his age, it would be rewarding for him to embrace a life of hermitism in a religious committee with a rosary in his hand not divisive politics. And since he is next in line to be Dobo’s next Caliph General, that time cannot be more urgent.
For our security forces, I ask that Mr ANM Darboe you stop bullying these fine men and women who are working day and night to keep you and I safe. If you cannot thank them for their service, you should not try to put them in harm’s way.
For us, our view is that the government should be and is inclusive of all citizens irrespective of party, religious and regional affiliations. We have a country to build and I will not let my grandpa Ousainou ANM Darboe distract me. A man will never be what God has not made him.
Seedy S.K Njie
Deputy Speaker, National Assembly.
