By Yankuba Jallow
Operation ‘3 years Jotna’ movement have on Monday called on President Adama Barrow to honour his promise to serve for 3 years as head of state.
The movement held a press conference on Monday at the B.O. Samega Janneh hall in reaction to the statements made by Fatoumata Jallow Tambajang, a co-chairperson of the opposition coalition that ended 22 years domineering rule of Yahya Jammeh.
Madame Jallow on Friday led a delegation of some stakeholders of the Coalition to State House where she said the national development program, especially the reform agenda of the Coalition government cannot be fully implemented in less than five years.
She said the Coalition stakeholders were going to amend the agreement in line with the decision taken at the Friday meeting, arguing that the signed agreement, and not the MOU, was what bound the stakeholders.
“The MoU is important. But the fundamentals are the agreements signed by all parties, which entail the reform agenda. If that reform agenda is incomplete, and considering the state in which we took government, we cannot leave that half-way and ask for elections or find another president. That is not rational. It is not logical.”
‘’On the basis of the incompletion of the reforms agenda, we, as a coalition, have decided to extend his [referring to President Barrow] social legitimacy from three (3) years to five (5) years’’, Chairperson Jallow Tambajang said.
Madame Tambajang added that the decision to extend was never solicited by the President; instead, it was borne out of the realization that it defeats logic and reason to abandon the ongoing reforms halfway and call for a new election.
The executives of ‘3 years Jotna’ have called on Fatoumata Jallow Tambajang to withdraw her statement while asking or her to call for proper consultation on the issue.
Hagi Suwaneh said Madame Jallow was out to mislead Gambians that was why she conspired with supporters of President Barrow (camp) to visit the Gambian leader at the State House. He said Gambians voted for 3 years, and this, according to him, was in accordance with the constitutions they had across the country.
He said any attempt to amend any provision of the Agreement should be inclusive and would require consulting Gambians across the country.
“This is because President Barrow made the promise to Gambians,” he said, adding that “we are calling coalition stakeholders to come back to the people when they desire to make amendments.”
He said their movement was of the view that the objectives of the coalition have been set aside owing to the simple reason that President Barrow was obsessed with power and wanted to establish himself as a self-perpetuating ruler. He added that their movement was formed 8 months ago to hold leaders accountable on their promises.
