The opposition Malick Sillah camp which announced its withdrawal from the weekend GFF elective congress had been explaining its reasons as well as commenting on the elections that went ahead on Saturday. A statement read by Spokesman Essa Jallow at a press conference said they would not legitimize an illegitimate process.
The Sillah camp also reacted to the elections that went ahead without their presence in the hall but with Malick Sillah and Foday Danjos names in the ballot reportedly because they committee they did not formally notice electoral Committee to withdraw their candidatures .
According to Team- Malick Sillah they have publicly announced their withdrawal and felt no need to write to the Electoral Committee since the Electoral Committee never even wrote to them accepting their nominations.. They only made a public notice on our nominations and we too made a public statement on our withdrawals since that was the mode of communication they chose to deal with us, said a source within the camp. The team further alleged that even the very process inside the election hall itself was full of illegalities.
The full statement from
the camp is reproduce below:
“After convincing ourselves that the present GFF executive committee is hell bent on clinching on power, after convincing ourselves that the present GFF executive will stoop so low as to deploy every means to cling on to power including the use of technical and strong-arm tactics to deny competent and honest people from getting elected and after having lost total confidence in the Electoral Committee and the Appeals Committee we have decided to withdraw from all the activities of the elective general assembly with a clear and true conscience for the following reasons
1. Disqualification of our five candidates was not premised on any provision of the GFF Constitution and Electoral Code.
2. Mr. Lang Tombong Tamba was convicted and sentenced for treason and other felonious offences by the High Court of The Gambia which decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court of appeal. Article 34.4 paragraph c of the GFF Constitution provides that “the members of the Executive Committee shall not have been convicted of a felon.”The acceptance of his nomination for the position of 3rd Vice President is flagrant violation of the article 34.4 of the GFF Constitution.
2. Mr Lamin Kaba Bajo, Bakary K Jammeh and Ebou Faye were implicated in the alleged tax fraud investigated by The Gambia Police Force. The aforesaid persons were suspended by the National Sports Council for their involvement in the alleged tax fraud and the suspension was subsequently rescinded by the Minister of Youth and Sports who has no such powers under the Act. Until the Sports Council meet and formally decide otherwise the trio are still under Sports Council suspension.
Team Malick has also observed the following irregularities during the Elective General Assembly.
1. The Regional Presidents who are Executive Committee members of GFF (Article 34) are not qualified to be delegates or vote during the elective General Assembly. Interestingly all the Regional Presidents participated as delegates and took part in the voting process.
Article 23.4 (GFF Constitution.) The members of the Executive Committee and the General Secretary shall take part in the General Assembly without voting rights. During their term of office, members of the Executive Committee shall not be appointed as delegates for their Association.
The 7 Regional presidents were elected sometime last year and are serving members of the GFF Executive committee.
2. Article 23 of the GFF Constitution was amended to increase the number of delegates/votes of Regional Football Associations and Allied Associations to 4 and 3 respectively. This was sequel to last year’s AGM to increase the number of teams in the first and second Division to 14 and 16 teams respectively effective in 2018/2019 League Season in order to create a balance in the voting powers of the members.
Until the 2018/2019 when the League Season starts the voting delegates should be 53 instead of 73.
The participation of the unqualified delegates/voters in the decision-making renders the electoral process illegitimate.
It is important to note that we are not represented at the Elective General Assembly and the outcome is not reflective of the realities. The electoral committee published the names of the qualified candidates on media and never writes to us formally in accepting our nominations. In the same vein we don’t need to write or formally inform a body that is partial in their dealings.
We are not relenting in anyway and Team Malick will continue to pursue all the legal means to have justice.”
