Press release
My attention has been drawn to a newspaper article on the Tuesday, 29th October 2019 edition of the Standard Newspaper, which quoted Ahmed Mai Fatty as saying that ”we [referring to the people of The Gambia] are yet to defeat some ways of the dictatorship”.
Nothing is farther from the truth and current realities of the country. Such comments are not only misleading but also an acute misrepresentation of the significant progress registered in the country in the area of the promotion and guaranteeing of the fundamental freedoms and democratic rights of all and sundry in The Gambia.
Granted, we do not expect the 22-year system entrenched by the former regime to be completely overturned overnight; however, to suggest, even the slightest, that dictatorship exists in any shape or form in this country, at this particular point in time will be disingenuous and constitutive of a monumental exaggeration devised to caricature the gains so far registered by the Barrow government in consonance with The Gambian people.
The comments serve no purpose than to cause alarm, trauma, and panic by drawing a false equivalence between President Barrow’s progress and the horrors tinpot dictator Jammeh unleashed on innocent citizens and non-citizens alike under his 22 years of dictatorship. As a trained lawyer, Mai Fatty ought to know that words matter, and as a responsible leader, he needs to exercise caution and maximum restraint in his public language.
Consequently, I thought it prudent despite being on holidays to reassure the general public that, under President Adama Barrow, the days of dictatorship are long gone. We are a progressive government determination to deliver a Gambia where all people can reach their fullest potentials and enjoy their inherent and inalienable rights under the full protection of the law and state. This is what motivated the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission, the Constitutional Review Commission, the reforms programme underway, among others.
Political Adviser to the President
Siaka Jatta
