By Tabora Bojang
Exiled former president and APRC supremo Yahya Jammeh has addressed a political rally for the second time in as many weeks.
Addressing supporters of the APRC ‘Operation No to Coalition’ through telephone at a meeting in Gunjur on Saturday, Jammeh who has caused ruckus in the party after arbitrarily “dissolving” the APRC executive last week and “revoking” the party’s alliance with NPP, said he is dismayed that “the tremendous accomplishments” of the previous regimes have been squandered by the current one.
He renewed his clichéd condemnation of the 2016 presidential election results and said they were rigged with support of some “external powers”.
He chastised: “For 22 years I have been telling Gambians that anytime this opposition wins and takes over the country, they will destroy the country. In fact, in 2016 they didn’t win, they rigged the election with support of some powers but we have now seen the intention of those powers. The 31 years of Jawara and 22 years of my work have all been destroyed in less than four years.
“Anybody who wants to lead the country and he is a tribalist, don’t give the country to him because he is going to divide the country. He is not going to see himself as a citizen but he is going to work on tribal sentiments and thereby destroy the country and that can even lead to a conflict.”
The former president also registered his disappointment with the “downturn” of the country’s health and education sectors.
“I feel sorry for you the children of The Gambia. My heart hurts because I know that most of you can no longer go to school which was taken for granted by parents. Today, for most of you who are going to school, your parents cannot afford it. The women who were working on their gardens were wealthier than their husbands and that has been destroyed. Healthcare is zero. It took us 22 difficult years to build the health care. We have one of the best health care systems in Africa, consult the WHO and they will tell you the truth,” Jammeh claimed.
