By Amadou Jadama
Salimatou Yaffa, a housewife from Tanji, yesterday testified in the ongoing criminal trial involving one Mariama Naba Darboe, who is accused of insulting the president. The matter is before the Senior Magistrate I Jallow of the Brusubi court.
Salimatou is the first person who has been charged under The Gambia’s new Criminal Offences Act 2025 for allegedly insulting the president.
She is facing a single count of “giving false information and parental insult to public officers”.
Prosecutor ASP Oley Bobb told the court that on July 5th this year, in Tanji, Kombo South, Ms Darboe allegedly directed a “parental insult” towards the president, stating, “he is a mother fucker”.
When the charge was read to her, she pleaded not guilty and was granted bail for D50,000, with two Gambian sureties. She was also ordered to surrender all her travel documents to the court.
The charge brought under Section 107(2) of the new Criminal Offences Act, passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President, prohibits “parental insults” targeting the President, Vice President, Ministers, National Assembly Members, and civil servants.”
Giving her testimony, Salimatou explained to the court that between 4pm to 5 pm on the day, she boarded a vehicle with the accused going towards ‘Brusubi Turntable’ and upon reaching the forest near Ghana Town, they found all the vehicles parked on the roadside.
“I was sitting by the accused and she asked me what is going on. I told her that it was the president who was passing by to lay the foundation stone in Sanyang and that is why all the vehicles were parked. Then she [derisively] said: ‘Mother fucker President of The Gambia called President Barrow’.
“I told her, don’t insult the president, and she said to me: ‘I will insult him, we are in a democracy’. I told her you have the right to speak your mind, but you have no right to insult the president. We had a push and pull and other people in the vehicle intervened and also told her not to insult the president.
“We continued the push and pull until we reached Five Star in Brufut. I saw one police officer by the name Amie and when she stopped our vehicle at the checkpoint, she asked what the noise was about, and I told her the accused was insulting the president, and that was the issue I had with her.
“The officer also asked the accused why she was insulting the president, but she repeated what she said to me to the officer and she asked both of us to alight from the vehicle and follow her to the police station.
“We went to Brufut Police Station and the officer there asked what kind of insult the accused used. From there, the accused repeated the same insult, ‘mother fucker president’. The police obtained our statements and told her that there is a law now that no one should insult the president…”She said.
Counsel for the accused Lawyer Lamin J Darboe began cross-examining the witness by asking her: “What did the accused say that offended you to report this matter to the police?”
Salimatou replied that Mariama insulted the president.
She said she did not record her when she uttered the insult but she made a statement at the police station.
When the statement was shown to her, Salimatou said she could not recognise her signature and telephone number because she was not literate.
Counsel J Darboe applied the said witness statement to tender in court as defence exhibit without any objection from the prosecutor.
The case will continue today.
