He said: “I want to make it very clear: I am a true Muslim. Gambians are true Muslims and true Muslims should not hate other human beings. I am not an enemy to the people of the United States of America. I am not an enemy to the government of the United States of America. We are not enemies to the people of the United States of America but we will not be dictated to. We may have problems with their government and their system which has nothing to do with the common American people. American people are good people and so also is Britain. Many British citizens who are retired civil servants feel at home here in The Gambia. So even if we have a problem with their government, we have no problem with the British people. You have seen for yourselves on New Year’s Eve what one lady [Briton] said about The Gambia. She was not paid to say so but she was saying the truth. The truth will always prevail. Whatever I say about the West… and I always hit on the British because they colonised us. They shouldn’t feel offended.
“We will not change our way of life. I will not change; I would rather die than support vices that would offend the Almighty Allah in the name of freedom. There is no freedom in vice, criminal behaviour and satanic attitudes. Gambians have their own values. Our democracy can never be decided and dictated by foreign capitals. If saying no to what is evil or un-Godly and if defending the dignity of my country and Africa as a people constitutes being a dictator, then I am a proud dictator whether they like it not. Let me make it very clear that, if they think that they can be homosexuals and want to impose homosexuality on the globe, they are doomed. They say I am intolerant, now they created a new minority just the same as they created [the word] chairperson… and that homosexuals are a minority that is being oppressed in this country.”
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