By Omar Bah
Omar Sanneh, who claimed he took second in the NPP primaries for Brikama North, has written a petition to party leader President Adama Barrow complaining against the selection committee whom he accused of bias, by selecting one Lamin Bojang to replace winner Fatou Bojang who cannot contest because she once worked for the IEC.
“I was among six others who initially applied to contest on the NPP ticket and three were dropped for not meeting one requirement or the other. The remaining three including myself, William Mendy and Fatou Bojang went to the primaries.
A total of 23 executive members voted in the primaries, 17 for Madam Fatou Bojang, 6 for me and no votes for Ms Mendy. So Fatou Bojang was declared to contest for NPP in Brikama North,” Sanneh said.
He added that he accepted the decision of the executive and congratulated Madam Bojang on her selection and even offered to throw his weight behind her by helping her with flyers.
“However, to my surprise, on Monday the 7th March I received a call in the morning from one Muhammed Cham, the NPP constituency secretary of Brikama North requesting a software that I used to prepare Fatou Bojang’s flyers. When I asked why, he told me Fatou Bojang is no more contesting because of IEC regulations that if you worked for the commission you are disqualified to run for election for a certain period and as such, the executive under the supervision of the party regional Chairman Lamin Jatta has selected Lamin Bojang, the same one who was among the three dropped for not meeting the selection criteria,” Sanneh said.
He said he found this to be unlawful because the regional executive should not select a replacement for Fatou Bojang without consulting the losing aspirants, especially himself who came second in the race.
“This decision of refusing to seek the consent of the aspirants is unfortunate. If you want to follow due process why should you select somebody who was not even qualified for the primaries in the first place? The selection of Mr Bojang was based on nepotism. The selection committee inexplicably ignored me despite my qualifications as a HTC teacher and Bachelors Degree holder from the University of The Gambia,” Sanneh complained in the petition.
He said had the selection committee followed due process they would have picked him as the runner up to replace Fatou Bojang.
“I therefore, call on the president and the National Executive of the NPP to take swift action in resolving this malicious act, which is apparently going to black–paint the image of an iconic party like the NPP. Many are watching and listening towards the outcome of this matter,” Sanneh said in his petition to President Barrow.
The Standard contacted a senior NPP official over the matter who said he will find out and get back to us.
