Even after the Gambia Government said any suggestion that former President Jammeh will return to the Gambia soon is false, APRC interim leader Fabakary Tombong Jatta has told The Standard that the former head of state’s return is inevitable.
“Because as a citizen of the country no one can stop his return, even if he killed the half of Gambia,” he said.
FTJ’s comments came barely a week after government spokesperson Ebrima Sankareh dismissed the rumour that president Jammeh will be allowed to return to the country.
The APRC leader further told Standard Bantaba: “You see, [government spokesperson] Sankareh only talks on behalf of government, which is a minority. When you talk about Gambians, you must do your statistics and find out. You cannot just go to radios and television saying ‘most Gambians.
“What we are doing is just going by the communiqué between President Jammeh, the UN, AU and Ecowas, that made Babili Mansa to leave this country for Equatorial Guinea. One of the conditions there is, following a period of time, he would determine when to come, and that will be up to him when to come. That aside, what we are saying is that Babili Mansa is a citizen of The Gambia, and there is no law that prevents any citizen of The Gambia from coming back home. Assuming that all the allegations are right, huh, should that prevent him from coming to The Gambia? For us Gambians, these allegations are unfounded. So, if Babili Mansa’s homecoming is a threat to people, I mean, let it be a threat but he will come.”
FTJ accused the UDP leader Ousainu Darboe of reneging on his earlier statement that Barrow should go for five years. He argued that Mr Darboe cannot claim he was just making a personal view because there is no such thing as personal opinions for political party leaders.
“If you remember Ousainu said anybody who talks about three years he will take you to court. Now, if UDP is making an announcement that Barrow should respect the three years, then Ousainu should have allowed his deputy or spokesperson to make that announcement because he had already spoken to Gambians.
Their agreement now, from what I heard from the radio, is that Ousainu spoke as an individual. That is untenable. Ousainu as leader of the party cannot speak as an individual, on policy issues. As I am talking to you now, whatever I tell you is the policy issue of APRC. I don’t have personal opinions. So, we must be honest to ourselves and to the people. If you make an error, let’s correct it but you want to change something that is not correct. People are no longer sleeping.
We have heard President Barrow say that his mentor is Ousainu Darboe, his godfather is Ousainu Darboe and that he has no political experience and so he left everything to Ousainu. If you look at the appointments in the system, mostly it was all done by Ousainu. So if there is failure, is Ousainu. If the system is good, transparent and democratic, Ousainu gets the credit.”
