By Omar Bah
Former president Jammeh’s lawyer Edward Gomez, has urged him to reconsider his decision of putting the spanner in the works of the APRC-NPP alliance.
Reacting to Jammeh’s decision which has split the green party, Gomez who also served as a Justice minister in Jammeh’s government stated: “Like many members of the APRC, I was personally disappointed [with Jammeh’s pronouncement] because what unites us is better than what divides us. I am advising him to accept the mandate of the people because the voice of the people is the voice of God.
“I am also advising Jammeh to accept Adama Barrow’s presidency as the will of God. The people decided and voted in Barrow; he should accept it. Any patriot should first of all think of the people and not your own personal interest.”
Gomez was one of the lawyers who defended Jammeh in his failed bid to maintain a stranglehold onto power after losing the 2016 election.
Barrow
The veteran lawyer said he has firmly hitched his wagon to Barrow’s train and will vote for him in the December 4th election.
“President Barrow has done well in some areas and he could be criticised in some areas due mainly to his inexperience. There are a lot of errors but also there are a lot of good things he did. We all make mistakes but such mistakes are not enough to say he is a failure. He has done a lot for the country and he will do more with time,” he said.
Asked whether he regretted representing Jammeh in 2016, Gomes retorted: “I have not regretted anything. I did what I did as a lawyer. Just like a doctor, you don’t run away from a patient because he or she has a terrible disease. Many doctors died trying to cure patients.
“In fact, after the Second World War in the Nuremberg trials, one of the lawyers was a Jew defending a Nazi. So I haven’t regretted anything because everything I did, I did professionally and within the codes of the ethics of the profession,” he said.
Gomes added: “There is a miscomprehension. I was not Yahya Jammeh’s lawyer. Jammeh had his own lawyers but when he asked them to file the election petition in court they declined. They betrayed him. I was the last person he reached out to and I was contacted on a Friday between 5-6pm by Yankuba Colley on his behalf to file the petition.”
The senior lawyer said Gambians should pray for “a peaceful Gambia and above all must try as much as possible to move away from the politics of tribe or religion”.
