By Omar Bah
The opposition Gambia Democratic Congress has accused the government of planning to reintroduce a lockdown immediately after Barrow’s tour.
The GDC national youth president, Modou MC Cham said his party has received information from reliable government sources, that a new lockdown will be introduced immediately after the tour but warned that any plans to do so will be met with serious resistance.
“Our sources informed us that the president is planning to reintroduce a lockdown to mainly target the opposition. But as far as the GDC is concerned, we will not accept any useless lockdown – it will not stop us from engaging in political activities,” Cham said.
He said Barrow’s tour has been politicized to the detriment of the opposition. “We cannot allow him to go round the country to make all kinds of comments against us (opposition) and then he returns only to lockdown. That will not happen in this country,” he said.
Cham said the GDC is also planning to hold political rallies after the president’s tour to clear the misconceptions created by the president and his political machines around the country.
“There is nothing that will stop us from holding these rallies. We want to send a very strong warning to the government that we will not succumb to any nonsense lockdown after the president’s tour just because Senegal has reintroduced a lockdown,” he added.
He said if the government is serious about the lockdown, they should immediately stop the president’s tour.
Gambia’s immediate neighbors, Senegal has since reintroduced lockdown after a surge in Covid-19 cases.
However, a highly-placed in the government source who did not want to be named, said he is not aware of any such plan. ”I think the country has already suffered too much from these lockdowns and even if there is going to be one, it will have to be based on sound professional health reasons, not political reasons,” our source said.
