In a commendable move recently, the president of the Gambia Press Union (GPU) and a delegation met with President Adama Barrow and had a detailed and fruitful discussion with him. At the end of this discussion, President Adama Barrow agreed to drop the charges leveled against journalists of The Voice Newspaper which was already in the courts.
The Gambia Police Force is also expected to drop the criminal case against the journalists and newspaper, The Voice. The case was brought about when The Voice Newspaper reported that Pres. Barrow was working on his exit plan, choosing business tycoon Muhammed Jah of the QGroup as his successor.
However, this story did not go down well with President Adama Barrow and his party, the National People’s Party. Thus, the president’s lawyer issued a warning to the paper that if the story is not retracted and an apology issued, they will have no choice but to resort to suing the paper. After the stipulated period elapsed, they went ahead and sued the paper and the reporter concerned.
In fact, the case had already begun with the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly who serves as deputy spokesperson for the NPP testifying that the story had caused a lot of harm to the party as there were even issues of internal wrangling due to it.
To many observers, there was little or no need to resort to a court case as the president and/or his party members could simply have issued a denial and the matter would have died down naturally. Going to court was thought to be counter-productive as it would just lengthen the time that the story would be on the news.
It is however welcomed that the president has seen fit to withdraw the case. Perhaps this reinforces the saying of the Wolof that reeroo amut nyaka waxtaan moo am (there is no misunderstanding where there is dialogue). With the delegation from the Gambia Press Union visiting and having a dialogue with the president, the issue has been amicably resolved.
It is important for the government and the media to see each other as partners in development rather than rivals.
