By Omar Bah
Alieu Momarr Njai, an elderly resident of Serekunda who is also the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, has called for the intervention of the Gambia government to avoid a potential unrest in Serekunda after a Supreme Court decision was considered to have robbed the larger Jobe Kunda family of their land.
The land in question, which is opposite the Serekunda mosque, belonged to one Ali Jobe, [Mr Njai’s maternal grandfather] who was the eldest son of the late Sayerr Jobe, the founder of Serekunda.
According to Alieu Momarr Njai, the Jobe Kunda family has not accepted the Supreme Court ruling which gave ownership of the land to one Mr Hydara.
“Immediately after the ruling, the elders of the town held a meeting and agreed for their lawyer to ask the Supreme Court to set up a panel of 7 judges to review the case. They also told the lawyer to ask the court to order a stay of execution until the case is reviewed by the panel of judges,” Njai told The Standard.
Njai also said the family wants the court to order Mr Hydara to stay away from the said land until they exhaust all legal means or there would be serious consequences.
“The Jobe family could not understand why the Supreme Court has decided to rule in favour of Hydara over a land which is owned by orphans and has not been shared yet. We made all these arguments through our lawyer at the court but still, they were not satisfied,” he said.
He said the disputed land was allegedly given to JC Faye by Isatou Jobe, a daughter of the late Ali Jobe, even before the property was shared in the Islamic tradition.
“I want to send a clear signal to the government that whenever Hydara attempts to build anything on that land, there will be chaos in Serekunda. The youth of the town have made it emphatically clear to me that they will attack him whenever he attempts to touch the land. So the ball is in government’s court to act now or risk entertaining a civil unrest,” he said.
