By Tabora Bojang
Responding to a recent claim by political science lecturer Essa Njie that opposition parties have relapsed into dormancy after the election, a UDP regional spokesperson has described these criticisms as “misleading and unfair” to the party.
“These comments are very unfair to the UDP. This party remains by far the most credible of Gambian opposition parties,” Karamo Njie said.
Karamo said the UDP is never known to be dormant as history can tell since 1996.
“We have been here for 22 years and bitterly fought Yahya Jammeh’s tyranny in every aspect and never have we backed down until the dictator was removed. We are always on top of our game and all genuine Gambians can attest to these facts. So, Essa Njie should have exempted UDP from that general claim of opposition dormancy,” he said.
Karamo Njie said another example is that even though President Barrow came from UDP, the party did not spare him when he started to do things like Jammeh and violating the party principles. “We withdrew our support and parted ways with him and since then, the party remains unshaken in its criticism of the Barrow government. We are still holding meetings, our spokespersons are on media platforms every time, our party leader has been speaking and holding Barrow and his government to account on their wrongs every night and day and he will continue to do so. So, I don’t agree with Essa Njie on that. Though I agreed that there are indeed opposition parties who sold their parties but that is not UDP,” he said.
Njie alleged that NRP, GPDP, NCP and CA have all sold their parties. “But it must be clear that from the beginning some of these parties were established for wealth and position-seeking and so there is no surprise that they went to Barrow for their selfish interest,” he said. Mr. Njie said the UDP, unlike other opposition, is not lost in focus towards enlightening the citizens and holding the government to account.
But another UDP surrogate, Sulayman Dampha, the spokesperson of the Gambia Market Union agrees with Essa Njie that the opposition is not doing enough as expected. He however claimed that the UDP and GDC are the most viable opposition out of the over 20 parties in the country.
