By Omar Bah
The chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission has revealed more details which spurred him into fleeing to Senegal after he refused to tweak the results in favour of APRC’s Yahya Jammeh at the 1 December 2016 presidential election.
Alieu Momar Njai told GRTS’ Check Point interview programme that credible sources informed him that former president Jammeh’s men wanted to inject him with a lethal injection after he refused to add 25,000 votes to his tally.
“It was after that intense pressure on me to change the results that I heard that I would have been a target of lethal injection if I did not do their bidding,” Njai said.
According to the octogenarian, even though he genuinely feared for his life, he was never going to succumb to the threats and the pressure and change the results in favour of the president.
Giving specifics, Chairman Njai said the matter “reached a head” on December 31 when he received reliable information that he was being targeted by Jammeh’s men.
He continued: “That was the time I called Professor Saliou Ndiaye, the Senegalese ambassador who told me to go to his house early morning and my son took me there early the next morning. When we reached the house, the ambassador advised my son to stay in his house and not to call from my phone or answer calls on it until he returns.
He said the Ambassador then drove him in his own vehicle to the border at Karang, where President Macky Sall sent another vehicle that took him to Dakar.
Mr Njai said when he arrived in Dakar, he chose to stay at his sister’s residence and President Sall sent one General Niang to inform him that he was safe and he could go anywhere he wanted to go in Senegal.
Mr Njai also admitted that both the US and British Embassy’s in The Gambia offered to give him “all the necessary support”.
Mr Njai said he thanked God for giving him the fortitude to stick to the truth and not to change the results.
The IEC boss said Jammeh never thought he was going to lose the election.
