By Momodou Jarju
The Interim Leader of the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) party Fabakary Tombong Jatta has said that Africa should endeavour to respect their former leaders, saying that no man is perfect.
He added that since January 2017, all the things said about Yahya Jammeh and the APRC were in the negative. He however said good observers would notice that the crowd of the party continues to grow after two years, regardless of the negative accusations people levied against the party.
He urged President Barrow to look back and do what Jammeh did to first president Dawda Jawara, so that when he is out of office, similar things would be accorded him. “President Barrow, no matter how long it may take, you will also leave office. You will be an ex-president,” he told the crowd.
“JAMMEH MUST COME BACK”
Various speakers at the gathering made emphases for exiled former president Jammeh to return to the country. Jatta said people should stop questioning whether Jammeh will return to the country, and should instead ask when he will return home. “I told people that there is no law, and no one has the power or the trick to deprive a citizen from staying in his/her country,” Jatta said.
Karamo Dampha, WCR Council of Elders and Bafoday Touray, WCR Mobilizer, expressed optimism that Jammeh will return home one day. Other speakers such as Fatou Jallow, Saikou Omar Sanneh and Alima Jarju, shared similar beliefs.
“NEXT GOV’T IS APRC”
Almost all speakers reiterated that their party will win the next presidential elections owing to the support it has regained. But were quick to remind and urge their supporters to look for national identification cards which would give them the right to vote and be voted for in elections.
In order to win the elections and bring Jammeh back, the general mobilizer of the party Yankuba Colley urged all and sundry to register for their ID and voters’ cards, to vote in the forthcoming elections.
According to him, some of their supporters broke or lost their voters’ cards, while others threw theirs after the presidential elections because they lost hope with the IEC, which cost them dearly.
He therefore said the coming elections would be a different matter.
RENEWS CALL FOR IEC CHAIRMAN TO RESIGN
The former majority leader in the Jammeh administration, has renewed the call for the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) Alieu Momarr Njie, to resign from his post for the second time, after barely a year, since he made the call. The former ruling party made a similar call following the completion of the Local Government elections in May 2018.
“On behalf of the National Executive Committee of the APRC and the entire members and in the interest of transparency and accountability, we call on the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission to resign. It is very clear that during the past elections, something happened which was not right,” Jatta told a capacity crowd of party supporters and sympathisers during the weekend, at the SSP football field adjacent the second Jah Oil filling station in Brikama, in the West Coast Region (WCR).
This was the party’s fourth mega rally after losing power to current coalition president Adama Barrow. The rally was overcrowded with people amid ambiance, music and cultural displays.
Supporters were mobilised in their numbers across the seven regions of the country including those from the Diaspora.
The party believes that they were cheated in the 2016 presidential elections which led ex-president Jammeh to declare the results of the elections null and void and called for fresh elections which never happened. The IEC under the Chairpersonship of Njie released modified results on 5th December 2016, three days after reporting the ballot results, saying an error occurred while tabulating using excel, where the modified results manifested a smaller margin between Barrow and Jammeh. Barrow’s victory margin was reduced from 8.8% to 3.7% of Jammeh’s APRC.
“The credibility of IEC is at stake if Momar Njie remains Chairperson of the IEC. We ask him to resign,” he told the crowd.
JAMMEH FOREVER
Fatou Jallow, WCR Councillor cited the killing of Haruna Jatta of 54 years and a native of Kanilai and others, as examples that remains a scar in them and as a result, would not support President Barrow.
“We will support Yahya Jammeh up to the end,” she asserted.
