Opposition Gambia Democratic Congress leader Mamma Kandeh, on record to have urged all Gambians to support last week’s OIC summit, has said the Banjul meeting had lowest turnout of heads state in the organization’s history.
Addressing supporters at a rally in Dobo, CRR Saturday, the GDC leader attributed the large absenteeism of OIC leaders to poor preparations.
”It is a simple logic before leaders travel their advance parties report back to them about the state of the host country and certainly those unimpressed advance parties must have informed their leaders about the lack of preparations in Banjul,” Kandeh noted.
He called on President Barrow to make frank personal assessment of the summit and advise himself whether it can be called a success. The GDC leader said the lesson Barrow should learn from this is to assess the effectiveness of his minsters especially foreign affairs and the many ineffective ‘unnecessary ambassadors doted around the world’.
“What impact do they have?” the GDC asked.
Vehicles
The GDC leader questioned the rational behind purchasing 89 very expensive vehicles costing over D3M each just for a two-day event. According to Kandeh, the government should explain how it entered into a prefinancing arrangement with a businessman to purchase the vehicles.
“In fact, what happened to the vehicles former president Yahya Jammeh already purchased for this very summit? Gambians need an explanation,” Kandeh said.
GDC strategy
Mr Kandeh said his party has adopted the principle of an open-door policy under which it will deal with all parties and their members. “We believe as a party seeking to govern the nation, we cannot afford to make a single enemy in this country,” he said.
The GDC leader urged Gambians to open their eyes and reflect on whether the Barrow administration has made any meaningful progress since 2016.
He noted that the idea of electing a president for the people to serve should be replaced with the idea of electing one that should instead serve the people.
Kandeh said if the GDC wins the 2026 presidential election, he will bring NPP, UDP, PDOIS, GAP and all the political parties together to help him develop the country “because the country belongs to all of us and we are the only ones who can develop it”.
