By Alagie Manneh
Presidential aspirant and former lead counsel of the TRRC, Essa Mbye Faal has said that the government of President Adama Barrow has no interest in implementing the recommendations of the truth commission because they want to form a coalition with the APRC.
Dou Sanno, an influential adviser to the president recently hinted that the president may not accept the recommendations of the TRRC and that Mr Essa Faal should be blamed for that because the lead counsel abandoned his work to enter politics.
But reacting in an expansive interview with The Standard at his residence in Bijilo last week, the former ICC defense counsel stated: “Those comments by Mr Sanno are the biggest distortion of the truth The Gambia has ever seen. These people never had any intention of implementing the TRRC report. What they did is just a clean disclosure of their intention, and they want to blame it on me. These people have not even seen the TRRC report, and they are now telling you that they will not implement it because there was this guy called Essa Faal who worked at the TRRC and was not present when they submitted the report. What a flimsy excuse. This is all a political calculation, aimed at two important reasons: One is to cozy up to the APRC so that they can have a coalition with them without which they stand no chance of winning. And the second is to smear my character and try to ruin my reputation, but they will fail woefully. Because every Gambian knows what was going on. They have done everything possible to stop me from running for president because they know it creates an impossible part to victory for them.”
In a marathon interview, Mr Faal also discussed his policies and dismissed reports that he was paid 10,000 dollars per month at the TRRC.
Read his full interview on the Bantaba tomorrow
