By Alagie Manneh
The national coordinator of the National People’s Party, has dismissed as unfounded allegations that he and his entourage threatened a King FM journalist with violence last Sunday.
Mr Fabou Sanneh, the national coordinator, together with NPP surrogates Ahmed Gitteh and Salifu Kemo Barrow were invited as guests to a popular weekly King FM political show, hosted by journalists Ebrima Jarra and Lamin Sanyang.
According to Mr Jarra, it was a “verbal threat and everything was premeditated”.
He narrated: “During the programme, Mr Sanneh lost his cool and started telling me he heard that when people come on the show I showed them no respect but no one could put him in their pocket. I retorted and words got exchanged. So, when I declared the show over, Mr Sanneh questioned why? He said I must open the line that they could tell people exactly what was going on. I refused. When we got outside, he said ‘NPP will be honoured here, if any body don’t like that, they must not invite us to their radio.”
Mr Jarra claimed out of the blue, one guy in the entourage entered the studio and shouted: “The freedom you people have here, we gave it to you. And if you are not mindful, we will beat you to near death.”
Jarra claimed he was informed about the NPP men’s design even before the show.
“My sources told the people I was inviting to my event said they were ready for me. This was what I was told. In fact when Fabou came into the studio, he said: ‘I have heard about you guys and I have prepared well.”
When the claim was put to him, Fabou Sanneh dismissed it as unfounded, and explained: “I know nothing about the threats. It’s not true. What happened was, he asked me a question but wouldn’t allow me to answer. I am not aware of any threats or attacks. As a journalist, when you ask a question, you must allow to hear the answer and when you make a claim you should be able to defend it. Mr Jarra couldn’t defend his claim and that was what I took up with him. That’s why I told him to go back on air so that we may clear those issues, but he refused.”
