After the publication of our headline story yesterday ‘JAMMEH’S RETURN NOT PART OF AGREEMENT WITH APRC’, Ousman ‘Rambo’ Jatta, deputy leader of APRC went on Star FM disparaging our story as false. Jatta claimed Mambanyick Njie, the administrative secretary of the NPP, who was quoted by this paper as the author of the statement disputed making the statement to The Standard.
Jatta claimed The Standard is anti-APRC and concocted the article to sell its paper.
Later in the day, Mr Njie appeared in a video interview at the NPP headquarters saying The Standard misreported his statement.
Reacting to this, the editor of The Standard, Lamin Cham stated: “Our story is 100 per cent true. We faithfully reported what Mambanyick stated. In fact we have him on record. And he repeated exactly what he told us on West Coast Radio yesterday morning. He cannot blow hot and cold from the same mouth at the same time. We have a record of what he told us and we have now made it available on all our social media feeds for our readers to hear the words from the mouth of the horse himself.
“As for Ousman Jatta, he is fond of making unguarded statements against the media and The Standard in particular. We are not anti-APRC or anti any other party. We follow where the news leads us. And no amount of idiotic bullying will make us change course. We are the first to report talks between NPP and APRC more than a year ago. Rambo and others denied it and now that is an open secret”.
The author of the story, Omar Bah described Mr Jatta’s comments as infantile. “How can he go about on a public platform and say things that are totally untrue? First, he claimed that Mambaynick Njie was not telling the truth but was quick to renew his unjustified criticism against The Standard by saying the paper concocted the story. He should shut his mouth if he has nothing sensible to utter. The Standard has nothing against the APRC or any political party,” Bah said.
Admission
Meanwhile, later in the day, Mr Njie himself called The Standard and said after we put the interview with Omar Bah online, he listened to it.
He said: “In fact I listened to the interview five minutes ago and I have heard exactly what I had said.”
When put to him that there was no ambiguity in what we had reported and what he said, he replied, “yes” and ruefully said yesterday was the “worst day” of his political life.
Standard editor Cham noted: “So obviously, we did not misreport, embellish or sensationalise what Mambanyick said. We reported exactly what he said. In fact we have under-reported the matter. We have Mambanyick Njie and another senior member of the NPP relaying to us exactly the same information. And we have all these interviews on record in our possession. So Ousman Jatta and other politicians should look for another whipping boy, not The Standard. We are not going to take nonsense from anyone and we do not want to be pushed.”
