By Lamin Cham
Special Presidential Adviser Momodou Sabally has reacted to an advisory message by Professor Baba Galleh Jallow to President Barrow, urging him to drop his third term ambition in the interest of the country.
According to Sabally, Barrow is seeking a term on moral reasons, arguing that in a world inundated with interruptions, disruptions and moral corruption, what The Gambia needs is continuity.
Sabs, who is also the youth president of the governing National People’s Party went on:
“As the world marvels at our collective success in transitioning from severe institutional and democratic challenges, to The Gambia’s socio-economic and infrastructural revolution under the leadership of President Barrow, what we need is the continuation of such development feats underpinned with democracy and entrenchment of respect for human rights. One such clear milestone to this effect would be the upcoming Presidential election that places no restriction on Adama Barrow or any of his challengers. And we know for sure that unlike some of our neighbours in the sub region the whole world is assured of free fair and peaceful election in Barrow’s Gambia.
But why is Baba Galleh Jallow, former TRRC Executive Secretary so obsessed with President Barrows well endorsed constitutional right to run again?
The only palpable reason is that Baba Galleh and his ilk all want to become president of The Gambia and they want it right now.
At the height of our transition in New Gambia when the whole country was waiting for the TRRC to finalise its report and submit it for implementation, their thirst for power led people like Baba Galleh and Essa Faal to abandon their positions at the TRRC and immediately announce their desire to jump into the political arena to seek the Presidency.
Their behaviour actually hampered the work of the TRRC given the roles Baba Galleh and Essa Faal were playing and marred the credibility of the outcome of that otherwise very sacred process.
That is why I stated earlier that given the disruptions and interruptions that have inflicted moral corruption on our governance processes, we cannot afford to lend our ears to fake prophets lien Baba Galleh. We would rather push for continuity of peace process and unprecedented development under the tried and tested leadership of President Barrow.
As I write these lines, the trending news in our major news outlets is that “The IMF’s Executive Board has approved an immediate disbursement of about $38.15 million to The Gambia following the successful completion of the Fourth Review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the First Review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).”
This approval and concomitant release of funds is meant to strengthen our gains in macroeconomic management, and public finance among other critical issues.
In addition to the foregoing, during the past 24 hours the Barrow Administration and the World Bank “launched a $52.6 million infrastructure program aimed at strengthening climate-resilient infrastructure, improving basic service delivery, and enhancing institutional capacity across key sectors of the economy.”
According to news reports “The multi-year initiative, known as the Gambia Infrastructure Project (GIP), is expected to directly benefit more than 100,000 people through improved road connectivity and expanded access to electricity, supporting long-term and inclusive socio-economic development.”
The above developments are no mere political arguments advanced by any over-zealous Barrow supporter.
These are developments recognised, supported and promoted by global institutions.
What is morally wrong is for President Barrow to abandon his role as captain of our ship of state as we progress in these rosy horizons just because of the impatience of a few entitled intellectuals who barely understand the realities of our country.
Given the current progress of the Barrow Administration in building roads and school and expanding access to water and electricity in areas where none had expected such amenities so soon, it is morally wrong that President Barrow should deny himself and his supporters the opportunity to vote for him to continue with this awe-inspiring development trajectory.
What is morally wrong is for President Barrow to listen to people like Baba Galleh who spent the better part of the past 2 decades in posh mansions in the West and not seek to continue with his transformational work. This, when the children of Boli Banna who recently benefited from a modern story building with state of the art computer labs are yearning for the opportunity for a sitting Gambian President to set foot on their home soil once more.
I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and I have seen evidence of the transformational projects implemented by President Barrow in hard-to-reach areas like Boli Banna in URR.
I am witness to the satisfaction they feel and also seen the hope in the innocent eyes of Gambian mothers and their children.
Those rays of hope are fanned by their humble and very peaceful President. They love this man and they trust him. The development attained underpinned by entrenched democracy and freedom is something they want to see progressing in the safe hands of President Barrow and the NPP.
This ship is moving and no amount of noise from the bystanders will distract its very cool, calm and focused captain, Africa’s Most Peaceful President, HE Adama Barrow under whose watch the youths are very happy”.
