Dear editor,
Mr Bakary Bunja Darbo served for thirty years in the PPP regime in the Jawara government. In that period, what did he do for his own people of Kiang and in particular Kiang West? He had served in various key government positions as education, youths and sport, tourism, finance and economic affairs minister and vice president and so forth. Bakary Dabo failed to offer any serious project to Kiang, and more especially Kiang west. Being an education minister, the ministry was under his direct watch for years yet no part of Kiang benefitted from getting a single junior secondary school at the time. As sport minister no single youth and sports development centrewas made available to the people of Kiang under his watch.
Demba woefully failed to service the immediate needs of his people in Kiang. Talk less of providing them with electricity and pipe borne water. After serving in high profile government positions, he left with Kiang West as one of the most under-developed regions in the country. In those days, school going children used to struggle to register a place in the famous Mansa Konko Junior Secondary School, and unfortunately the school could not accommodate all the students vying for positions in the only junior secondary of the region. Thanks to the former House of Representative member How soon Janneh who was not even a native of Kiang who brought numerous projects such as the Karantaba Health Centre and feeder road stretch from Sankandi to Karantaba and an extension to Janneh Kunda, Kemoto, Manduar and Tankular.
Mr Dabo’s political comeback is merely for personal interest but not to serve our interests as Kiangkas. What Yahya AJJ Jammeh and APRC government did in Kiang, despite their bad political tactics,was more commendable as they built numerous junior and senior secondary schools across the entire Kiang.This cannot be denied. I rest my case.
Yahya Marr
Kiang
Mr Information minister, have you forgotten?
Dear editor,
Our minister of information, who was a correspondent for an international organisation, was against the way our former regime used to treat journalists and the lack of press freedom in The Gambia, and the general human rights violations. Now the same person is defending the way our security forces or the Police Intervention Unit acted towards the Three Years Jotna demonstrators, and the closure of two popular radio stations.
Mr Minister, journalists going to a place of action to get information to inform the general public, should not be stopped from doing their jobs, and to add insult to injury, arrested and their outfits closed.
It is very sad to see that even the former regime is much better than the Barrow government. In only three years, your government became another dictatorial government which we all fought for when we removed dictator Yahya Jammeh. So remember that there will come a time when you will be out of office, and you yourselves will have to face justice.
Ibrahima Njai
Banjul
Mr Gassama does not understand the constitution
Dear editor,
I read with interest your lead article of Monday 10th February in which you reported the reaction of former Nominated National Assembly Member, Foday Gassama.
The put the record straight, Mr Gasssama either didn’t know or understand the Constitution or he is misleading the public. First and foremost, the Supreme Court never confirmed or approved his nomination.
Besides, the Supreme Court is not the approving authority for such nomination. What the Supreme Court did was to look into the injunction that Ya Kumba filed to restrain Mr Gassama from assuming that position. As a procedure of the court, when an injunction is filed, you first look at the injunction before anything else and that was exactly what the Supreme Court did. The ruling was that Ya Kumba didnot have any authority to stop Mr Gassama from being sworn in as a nominated member.
Now the second thing they looked at recently was whether the president has the authority to dismiss a National Assembly Member. As reported, the courts did not see any section in the Constitution that granted the president to do so and by this the nomination of Foday was voided. For Mr Gassama to say that any appointing authority has the power to revoke that appointment is misleading as the Constitution gives restriction for certain positions that the president cannot just revoke, for example, the ombudsman. I only hope that the Constitutional Review Commission has taken note of some of these lessons so that the nominated positions at the National Assembly are entirely removed from the new constitution.
Lamin Sonko
Serekunda
