By Omar Bah
The leader of the United Democratic Party has appealed to President Adama Barrow to stop making unnecessary and bogus comments not expected from a head of state.
Ousainu Darboe was reacting to the Gambian leader’s claims that jujus were buried under the heads of dead bodies to get him [Darboe] released from prison.
The president’s comments became a serious subject of ridicule in the hands of his political opponents.
But commenting on the issue for the first time, Darboe, who was addressing UDP supporters at the official unveiling of former NPP strongwoman Ramou Sabally on Friday at the party’s Manjai bureau, said: “I beg you Mr President, the position you are holding is too dignified a position for you to engage in bogus talks. Don’t allow Senegalese, Sierra Leoneans and other nationals to make a fool of us that our president doesn’t have anything to say except these bogus things. I appeal to you to stop making these trivialised statements and focus on the more important and pressing issues affecting the Gambian people. Discussing how you dug graves and climbing 500 metre trees will not take this country anywhere.”
The veteran politician also countered the president’s recent claims that the UDP didn’t pay his deposit in the 2007 National Assembly election.
Darboe said contrary to the president’s claim, the UDP paid his deposit. “For him to say UDP didn’t pay his deposit is empty talk. Even the deposit for the presidential election was paid by the coalition,” Darboe added.
Ramou Sabally
Darboe officially welcomed top former NPP mobiliser and grassroots politician with more than 25 years of experience, Ramou J Sabally to the UDP.
Madam Sabally and scores of her followers quit President Barrow’s NPP, and they were officially presented at the party’s Manjai bureau on Saturday.
Commenting on the country’s political tension, Darboe urged Gambians to avoid being divided along political lines and learn from Ramou Sabally and her husband, who was in the UDP while Ramou was in the APRC and then the NPP. “Their belonging to different parties never affected them relationship. Momodou Sabally and Ramou Sabally are from the same mother and father and they were supporting different political parties but that had not affected their family relation. These are very good examples of tolerance and therefore let us not allow politics to divide us,” Draboe said.
Also addressing the meeting, which was attended by hundreds of UDP supporters, Madam Sabally, a former NPP national women’s spokesperson, said she is happy to officially join the UDP family. She said she is committed to get UDP win the December election. “I promise you that immediately after this meeting, I will go round the country and by the time I return to Kombo, it will be all but over,” she said.
