A report published on Freedom website yesterday, stated: “The Standard Newspaper Editorial team have been shuttling between their offices and the NIA Head Quarters in Banjul for the past few days, amid a Freedom Newspaper publication exposing the disappearances of one of their staffers in the person of Mr. Ousman Bojang, who happens to be a former sacked NIA analyst, we can report. The paper’s Managing Editor and Proprietor Sheriff Bojang was invited for questioning by the Agency alongside with his News Editor Sainey Darboe. The duo have been subjected to grilling questioning and interrogation by the NIA. Both Bojang and Darboe have refrained from talking about their NIA ordeal–not to mention publishing it in their newspaper.
A source close to the Standard Newspaper said there is growing anxiety and worry at the Newspaper, following the invitation of its Editors to the NIA for clarification. The Freedom publication is causing a big shakeup here, the Standard insider intimated. “The NIA has been asking Sheriff Bojang and Sainey Darboe shed light on the whereabouts of their reporter Ousman Bojang. Both Bojang and Darboe could not account for Bojang,” our source said.
It would be recalled that the Freedom Newspaper recently reported that Ousman Bojang was allegedly abducted from his home by some security agents believed to be NIA operatives. Bojang has since been reported missing.”
Reacting to the article, Mr Bojang stated: “This is total hogwash. I have not been invited by the NIA, INA or whatever you have about Ousman Bojang or whoever. And neither has the editor, Sainey Darboe. This is a complete lie and a figment of the imagination of Pa Nderry Mbai. He has such a fertile mind… I think he should take up novel writing! I can’t even remember the year I was called at the NIA, not to talk about being grilled and all that.”
On the matter of Mr Ousman Bojang, The Standard boss explained: “I remember Pa Nderry calling me in the middle of the night about a fortnight ago, asking me about this Ousman Bojang. I told him to call me back in the morning but he never did only to be told of the publication of some sleazy article on his website. Mr Ousman Bojang was at no point “a staff reporter at The Standard” and he had not worked here for a year as it is only about six months since we resumed publication. He tried his hand at reporting and did not make the cut, details of which I can’t supply here, and then he translated a few Friday khutbahs of some imams which he published. He is not a journalist, a member of the GPU or a staff reporter at The Standard.
“About two months ago, he told me about the grave illness of his father, whom he said was the alkalo of some village in Foni and that he was going to take care of him and he stopped coming to The Standard. I have called his wife, as recently as last week, to see how he was doing and she has been assuring me that he was fine and taking care of his father. So, I really don’t know where Pa Nderry Mbai has been getting his strange stories of the NIA abducting Ousman Bojang and possibly killing him?
“I try to ignore Pa Nderry and his gossip-mongering and I would rather people who read his website do not bother me with things he writes there about either me or The Standard as almost always they are sulphuric lies.”
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