Dear editor,
I hereby condemn in the strongest terms the baseless and cowardly threat directed at Musa Sheriff and his newspaper, The Voice by none other than the President Adama Barrow through his lawyers.
The Voice Newspaper has a right to write about the public and private life of the President simply because he is the President. If the President does not want his public and private life to be discussed he should refrain from being a President. https://www.voicegambia.com/…/barrow-chooses-muhammed…/
As a President, it is citizens who cater for his public and private welfare hence the media has a right to scrutinize his life to report it for public consumption, without injuring his human dignity.
The Constitution has given a right and duty to the media to hold the Government accountable on behalf of the people. This constitutional duty includes holding public officials such as the President accountable. The tenure of the President is a legitimate public matter that deserves to be reported by the media for the public.
Therefore, the story that The Voice newspaper published about the President’s successor is not a defamatory story nor is it malicious. The newspaper relied on sources to report the story. Some of these sources are top members of the NPP and surrogates of Pres. Barrow who vehemently denied the story.
If the President is disturbed by or dislikes the story, he has uncountable ways to refute it. But he has no basis to sue the newspaper. Whoever told him to take this intolerant action has severely ill-advised him which has put the Office of the President into disrepute.
Public officials must know that they cannot hold public office and want to control the opinions of the media and citizens about them. If they do not wish to be scrutinized, discussed and pointed at, rightly or wrongly, then let them resign. Simple.
Therefore, I hereby condemn the President for this action which tantamount to intimidation and violation of the freedom of the media which is guaranteed by the Constitution.
I call on the GPU to strongly protest this ill-advised, baseless and undemocratic action which is nothing but a threat against the media.
I call on all citizens to stand in solidarity with The Voice newspaper and its editor Musa Sheriff. This threat from the President is dictatorial and a severe violation of the Constitution for which I call on National Assembly Members to take action against the President.
If the President could threaten the media for their coverage of him then it means the President is denying the media from performing its constitutional duty to hold him accountable hence the President is raising himself above accountability to the Gambian people.
I urge Musa Sheriff not to retract nor apologize for the story and stand ready to go to court. I shall stand with you on every court day.
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
‘Tubaabukarang’: What our ancestors feared
Dear editor,
Every damn day, we give people we condescendingly refer to as ordinary folks a set of reasons not to take us for serious and trustworthy partners of development. We demonstrate our lack of trust on a daily basis, breach agreements we should hold sacrosanct, and proceed to institutionalise this dastardly trend to the point of flaunting it as a batch of honour. As a matter of fact, this is what has shaped the justifiably unflattering perception about the conventionally educated demographic in the popular imagination.
We demonize elderly public servants and brand them as irredeemable architects of our country’s dysfunctionality through flagrant corruption, nepotism and bureaucratic ineptitude, asserting the need for them to be laid off for brilliant, conscientious, and incorruptible young minds. Spare the ageism of which this notion is emblematic, do the ‘messianic’ young people possess the afore-stated qualities they wish to see in a model public servant? The answer for this lies rent-free in the realm of practicality and not idealism.
When conventional education was newly introduced to our largely unlettered forebears, there was widespread fear it could compromise with the moral compass of the unsuspecting and ideologically vulnerable children. As a result, it wasn’t so popular among them and was met with benign reluctance across generations. What they feared is exactly what is playing out in this evil-glorifying generation.
Down to what inspired this post, I think Gambians are undivided in their disappointment and condemnation of what is currently making headlines—the embezzlement of the endowment funds of UTG students, which were placed aside to be used as a bailout for underprivileged students. What is troubling about this misconduct transcends the actual misappropriation; it gives us an inkling of what we will be right to expect in a youthful civil service.
Unfortunately, the tale is being sensationalised to scandalise the rest of the 19th Executive Council of University of The Gambia Students’ Union. While it is difficult to absolve them of blame superficially because the culprits belonged in the council, it is grossly unfair to chastise the rest of the council members severally for the actions of two mentally stable and well-informed adults.
It has nothing to do with the integrity of the rest of the council members. The council consisted of people with enviable track records whose actions are guided by conscience, as demonstrated in their unreserved condemnation of the misconduct of their colleagues. It is a symbolic betrayal they themselves didn’t see coming.
The audacity of the America-bound culprit is rooted in his belief that his action would be without consequences. According to What’s On- Gambia, the boy believed nothing could be done because he was now in the US. Unbelievable and infantile!
Now that it is known who took what, what is next? Will the funds be refunded—which goes without asking? If that is done, what next? Will the perpetrators be punished for their actions as a deterrence for recurrence?
Musa Touray
