By Alagie Manneh
Majority leader and Member for Kantora Billay Tunkara has been warned to “shut up” regarding the debate on President Adama Barrow’s third term ambition and show respect to Ecowas.
The reprehension came from opposition UDP female politician, Fatou Conta.
Last week, the majority leader defended Barrow’s right to seek a third term, arguing that no law exists to prevent him from doing so, in an apparent response to Mr Edwin Snowe, chairman of the Ecowas parliamentary committee on political affairs who had advised the president to do as Macky Sall of Senegal did.
Tunkara also accused the Liberian lawmaker of not respecting the sovereignty of The Gambia speaking loosely on issues unbecoming of an Ecowas parliamentarian.
But in her response, Ms Conta said the likes of Billay Tunkara are “unprincipled” politicians who “have tasted power and forgotten” where The Gambia emerged from seven years ago.
She argued: “Billay should be reminded that it was Ecowas that intervened in 2016 when Jammeh refused to leave office, took Barrow to Mali and then Senegal before threatening military action against him should he failed to respect the verdict of the election. This is what led to the existence of the government that he is so blindly supporting today. So now the power drunk Mr Tunkara can tell off a fellow Ecowas MP on his opinion about third term in an Ecowas country? This a shame”.
Ms Conta said Billay Tunkara does not even know the function of the legislature otherwise his utterances and actions would me more mature and informed.
She said the issue of third term is not even a local subject alone but only educated and knowledgeable politicians in parliament would recognise it as a progressive debate.” Mr Tunkara does not belong to that class,” she said.
