By Amadou Jadama
The deputy leader of the National Reconciliation Party has described his party leader Hamat Bah who doubles as minister of tourism, as “a cankerworm” in President Barrow’s cabinet and in the NPP.
Musa Sonko who has no love lost for his party leader said Hamat Bah’s theatrics are undermining President Barrow’s political agenda.
Speaking to The Standard over the weekend, Sonko contended: “Hamat Bah is a cankerworm in President Adama Barrow’s government and his NPP, yet President Barrow himself does not realise it. If Hamat Bah is really committed to President Barrow’s success as he is claiming, what he should do now is to focus on the tourism sector and try to rejig the industry. A lot of people, as well as the country’s economy, depend on tourism for survival. If that industry is dying, as the responsible minister, he should give it his all instead of following President Barrow, who is embarking on his constitutional duty.”
“Hamat Bah should return and fix his sector and allow President Barrow and his politicians to go on their political tour. If there is any opposition to Barrow, I think it is Hamat Bah since at the onset. At our convention, he contested against Barrow. After the convention [2016], he told us that he was not going to campaign for Barrow and we were going to fail. And I believe up till now Hamat does not like Barrow,” the Niumi Berending native claimed.
Directing more salvos at his party leader, Sonko, a former ambassador to Guinea Bissau, alleged that Hamat Bah “only follows President Barrow to line his pocket… what he can get from him and put it in his pocket”.
“That is why he abandoned his party, the NRP, knowingly full well that the opportunities he has from Barrow, he would not have them anywhere. I am telling you categorically that it is Hamat Bah who has made President Barrow to do away with some of his friends. Hamat Bah is now in full control of President Adama Barrow and his entire political activities. Hamat is dangerous, he can even make two countries fight,” Mr Sonko claimed.
“When Barrow leaves office and is probed, the country will hardly recover any butut from Hamat Bah because his accounts are in Senegal and the moment he heard that President Barrow has lost, that will be the last we will see of Hamat in this country,” said an embittered Mr Sonko who blamed Mr Bah for the loss of his cushy diplomatic job.
