By Omar Bah
The high profile split in the top echelon of the opposition Gambia Democratic Congress, GDC continues to reverberate with the party now abandoning its initial stance not to openly quarrel with expelled top official Omar Batchilly.
Last week, the party announced it has expelled Batchily without advancing any reasons but the former official fired back saying he had in fact resigned and accused the party leader Mamma Kandeh of not being transparent.
Speaking to The Standard yesterday, party spokesman Momodou M5 Jallow said Mr Batchilly’s claims are false and not helpful even to his own dignity and self-respect.
He said the party never intended to reveal Mr Batchily’s true nature or the reasons for his expulsion but since he is now on the rampage trying to defend himself, “we will now tell you that he was expelled because the party has noticed that he is using GDC’s name for his personal business in contravention of the party’s objective”.
Jallow further stressed that the GDC leader himself as an individual has no hand in the expulsion of Mr Batchilly and that the decision was collectively reached by the executive of the GDC.
“We cannot of course stop him from making false claims and allegations about the party and its leaders in self defense, but we will rather deal with that than allowing him use the party for his personal issues and interest and we would like to assure him that the GDC is here to stay and nothing can change that,” Jallow said.
He said Batchilly’s claims that he resigned from the party since May is ridiculous because, as recent as June 22, he collected money from the party leader Mamma Kandeh for his Koriteh.
“We have so many reasons to expel him, and if he continues talking we will tell the world in detail everything that he has done,” Jallow warned.
The high profile split surfaced last week when Omar Batchilly, a senior official of the GDC, announced his resignation accusing the party leader of lack of transparency among other things.
