BB says PPP will fight to get back its properties

By Tabora Bojang Former vice president Bakary Bunja Dabo of the People’s Progressive Party has disclosed that the party will do everything it can to recover its ‘confiscated properties’ seized by Yahya Jammeh after the 1994 coup . BB Dabo, who served as VP from 1982-1992 under President Jawara, said as soon as Jammeh and his cronies took power, they embarked on an agenda to crush the PPP in the name of a corruption investigation of the party’s political leadership. Dabo said that was a ploy used by Jammeh to taint the image of the former ruling party in recognition of its democratic and transparent lawful record of accomplishments, adding that the sheer ‘maliciousness of that ferocity was wrecked on the PPP and the Gambia. “When the military came, they overthrew the government, which in itself is a heinous crime, but as if that is not enough, they took on the PPP with such ferocious hostility,” Dabo said. “They jumped on our properties, seized all of them without the most elementary process, not even a commission of inquiry and all our properties were seized including vehicles and landed properties. They moved into our archives like vandals and stole all of them,” he said. He said for a citizen to be subjected to that kind of treatment by people acting in the name of the state is ‘most callous’ adding “we felt sad because we thought voices should have been heard against that injustice.” BB, who first returned from over 20 years exile in March 2017, also voiced a dint of disappointment at some quarters. He went on: “If the former government, notorious as it was for criminality did such a thing, the successor government should as soon as it assumes office in the name of continuity look into this and return our properties to us”. He further lamented that to his embarrassment, “even after the dictatorship, the successor government in the name of the principle continuity is still holding onto their properties. This cannot be right, this is our property we did nothing on the contrary. We did everything we owe the state. However we as PPP believe in the justice system of this country and we will recover everything that we own and every wrong that has been done to us.” Mr Dabo added: “The PPP was a legally registered party, which operated in the country for over 30 years. We were the party in power but never got tempted to abuse it. We paid our dues to BCC or wherever we had properties. We paid our land fees to the Lands office, every vehicle we imported is duly paid through the Ports and Customs. Such was our record of being law abiding even though the temptation was there for us to throw our weight, we never did.”]]>