It is really interesting to follow the exchange between the UDP and NADD.  
As a stakeholder, I will not keep mute because the UDP and NADD alone do not 
own Gambia, but all of us are.  Based on the exchange that we have seen in 
public, thus far, it should be by now very clear that the Gambia both sides 
want to see in the future is not the same.

After all the debates and arguments on the question of "The Opposition", do 
Gambians believe the below heading?

"The joint Executive Committee of the UDP/NRP respects NADD’s decision to 
reject the proposals emanating from it."

There is a NADD proposal, in the form of the MOU that Gambians have reviewed 
and analyzed and concluded upon.  Where is the proposal or MOU of the UDP 
for Gambians to review and analyze?  Why is the UDP stuck at disagreeing 
with the NADD MOU, yet they offer nothing to Gambians, but "come and join 
us"?  Can any person reading, show me the UDP MOU?  If any has one, please 
put it up so Gambians can be educated on what the UDP is mounted upon and 
for comparison purposes.

Some may say this debate will still not give us a united opposition, 
however, we are and educated people and we are interested in seeing what 
holds water and what is porous between these opposing views.  If this is a 
time for all to put out, then all must put out or shut up.  Let both sides 
not worry about the analytical skills of Gambians, just put your foundation 
down and we will put them side by side and tell you what we think.  NADD 
told us the Gambia they want to create, which is ground zero in this debate, 
now, can we have the same for the UDP to start the weighing process between 
the two?

Please read on.



NADD AND UDP/NRP VIEWS ON UNITY

NADD Executive Secretary

Dear Colleague,

Your letter ref. NADD/FA/02/02/06 of 6th August 2006 refers.

The joint Executive Committee of the UDP/NRP respects NADD’s decision to 
reject the proposals emanating from it.

The UDP/NRP Alliance wishes to draw NADD’s attention to the fact that 
legally UDP/NRP cannot be part or members of NADD. The NADD Executive seems 
to be ignoring the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Sallah and 
others Vs. The Clerk of the National Assembly and others. The suggestion 
that UDP/NRP Alliance is to state categorically whether it is willing to 
join NADD is a suggestion that fails to recognize the legal position that 
parties cannot form or be members of political parties. Although Mr. Hamat 
Bah and Mr. Ousainu Darboe and indeed any other Gambian is free and entitle 
to join NADD the political party under whose umbrella you propose to sponsor 
candidates for any election the reality of

the matter is that neither Mr. Bah nor Mr. Darboe is willing to resign their 
membership of their parties to rejoin NADD.

The leadership of the UDP/NRP Alliance is very conversant with the laws of 
The Gambia and in particular laws regulating and governing election matters. 
Probably if the views of some people who are part of the UDP/NRP Alliance 
were heeded the legal and constitutional mess created by the registration of 
NADD would have been averted. The UDP/NRP Alliance is not seeking and has 
never sought power for its sake. It is an Alliance that is genuinely 
committed to the amelioration of the worsening conditions in all aspects in 
The Gambia.

Finally I regard your rejection, without any discussion, of our proposal as 
a rejection of our invitation to meet and discuss and this we accept in good 
faith.

Yours in the service of the truth.

A.N.M. OUSAINU DARBOE

(For UDP/NR.P Alliance)



NADD’S RESPONSE

Dear Mr. Darboe,

ON THE CONTENTIOUS ISSUES RAISED IN YOUR LETTER

Your memorandum of 7th July has been received.

The Executive Committee of NADD respects your decision not to be part of the 
NADD compact. Of course NADD cannot be part of the expanded UDP/NRP Alliance 
since the two parties were part and parcel of NADD’s political arrangement.

However, the Executive Committee of NADD was very much disappointed that you 
proceeded to indicate in no uncertain terms that the Supreme Court case 
Sallah vs the Clerk of the National Assembly and others has barred the 
UDP/NRP alliance from stating categorically its  terms and conditions for 
re-engaging NADD. The Executive Committee will convey its rejection of your 
political interpretation of the Supreme Court decision and its immense 
revulsion for your description of the greatest demonstration of political 
will by the opposition by registering NADD as an umbrella party, as a legal 
and constitutional mess. I decided to seek authorization from the Executive 
Committee to address such issues
with greater clarity since you claim that the registration of NADD was 
against your advice.

Mr. Darboe, even though I, Halifa Sallah, was not around when the NADD 
Executive Committee sent papers to IEC for registration of NADD, even though 
as Minority Leader in the National Assembly and member of the Pan-African 
parliament I had more to lose in terms of post than any member of NADD when 
our seats were declared vacant, even though there had not been the slightest 
indication that I will be made flag-bearer before the court decision, I did 
not hesitate to tell the whole world that the registration of NADD was a 
blessing in disguise. The reason for this is simple.

It is incontrovertible that once the MOU was signed by the representatives 
of all the political parties to establish NADD its registration became 
mandatory in order to give relevance to its letter and spirit. Let me refer 
you to the MOU to buttress my point.

Article 16 of the MOU states that “The Alliance shall have an emblem, 
colour, motto and symbol to be determined within one month of the coming 
into force of the agreement with the full participation of its supporters 
and sympathizers.”

Suffice it to say that Article 8 also adds that “The selection of the 
candidate of the Alliance for presidential, National Assembly and council 
elections shall be done by consensus, provided that in the event of an 
impasse selection shall be done by holding a primary election restricted to 
party delegates on the basis of equal number of delegates, comprising the 
chairwoman and youth leader of each party from each village/ward in the 
constituency.”

Mr. Darboe, you have mastered the chapter and verse of your profession. I do 
not need to quote section 60 of the Constitution to prove that the 
registration of NADD was connected with, dependent on and determined by the 
letter and spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding that all parties signed 
in public knowing fully well what its contents were. NADD had to be 
registered in order for us to contest under its ticket. This is the 
requirement of the Constitution and the Elections Decree. Hence the attempt 
to register NADD was not a constitutional or legal blunder; on the contrary, 
it was a constitutional and legal necessity.

Hence anyone who sees the registration of NADD as a legal and constitutional 
mess must equally consider his/her signing of the memorandum of 
understanding as a historical blunder or folly. If signing the MOU is 
considered a blunder where lies the integrity of its signatories.

In short, before we agreed on the content of the MOU we set up a technical 
committee comprising the experts of all the political parties. Your party 
was represented by people of high intellectual calibre. Within the technical 
committee were former permanent secretaries and people with PhD. As far as I 
am concerned, the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding and the 
registration of NADD were the highest demonstration of political will by the 
opposition to bring about democratic change in the Gambia. We proved that we 
were determined to unite for change regardless of the peril or the cost. I 
must admit that the UDP representatives earned my trust for the diligent
way they participated in the work of the technical committee. We should not 
rewrite history because of the momentary convenience and rob such honourable 
intellectuals of due credit. The determination mustered by all to 
consolidate NADD was manifested after the court decision.

After our seats were declared vacant, we again had opportunity to dismantle 
NADD and return to contest the by-elections under our respective parties. We 
were given ample time to make our decisions. We concluded that our different 
parties will remain allies while we allow the Executive Members to remain in 
NADD so that it could serve as an umbrella party. This is why all Executive 
Members of the various parties symbolically resigned from their parties to 
remain Executive Committee Members of NADD. This again was the second most 
important demonstration of political will, by the opposition to ensure 
unity. It earned us the respect and admiration of the electorate for not 
being self seekers.

The sacrifice paid dividend. We did not only win our seats back, the APRC 
regime became so threatened that it had to arrest members of the NADD 
leadership which gave rise to its total national and international 
isolation. The coming of President Obasanjo, the signing of the memorandum 
of understanding and the massive solidarity NADD received nationally and 
internationally confirmed that it was the best instrument to utilize to 
contest the 2006 presidential election.

Mr. Darboe, the fact that Mr. Bah left NADD at a time when he was pursuing 
an election petition as a NADD candidate confirms where the political and 
strategic blunder originated from.

We first stood by NADD with an iron will. It became an invincible rock which 
was split by your withdrawal. This is why NADD has done everything to open 
its doors for re-engagement. It is therefore immensely amazing that you 
would conclude that you regard our rejection of your proposal as a rejection 
of all invitation to discuss. I will leave the NADD Executive to clarify its 
point.

As far as I am concerned, I have engaged you in a very honest and sincere 
discussion because of my conviction that an alliance is the best mechanism 
to contest the 2006 elections. An alliance on NADD’s terms provides 
conditions that we have all signed to honour. An alliance on UDP/NRP terms 
is yet to be defined in form and content. This is the point. NADD gave you 
the option of making proposal on how one of your parties should declare its 
desire to lead an opposition alliance and then offer its terms to other 
opposition parties for consideration rather than hide behind the cloak of an 
expanded UDP/NRP alliance which can never be known to the law.

To show you that as a flagbearer of NADD I have always been opened to 
principled compromise, I would like to give an example of how to make our 
discussion relevant, realistic, and indispensable. In a word, would you 
agree to a proposal for NADD and the UDP/NRP Alliance to draw a list of 
possible candidates and then select a group of prominent Gambians to select 
one among their number to be a compromise candidate for the presidential 
elections. This candidate can be restricted to a term of 2 or 3 years to 
implement a rectification programme and prepare the country for free and 
fair elections.

Secondly, it gave you the option of revisiting the MOU establishing NADD.

Thirdly, it gave you the option of giving form and content to the UDP/NRP 
alliance to enable us to determine how it could be engaged without being an 
expanded part of it.

How you can interpret these positions as closing the doors for discussion 
beats my imagination.

Secondly, since the flag-bearer of your alliance wants no restriction to his 
term in office to a five year term, would you accept an arrangement where 
the NADD flag-bearer becomes the presidential candidate and sit for three or 
five years while a system embodying a prime minister is introduced to enable 
the flag-bearer of the UDP/NRP alliance to head a coalition government. The 
president will be barred from seeking a second term while the prime minister 
is allowed to seek the normal term of the presidency. These are the type of 
concrete proposals we expect from you as we race against time.

I would want your opinion on these proposals before Saturday 12th August 
2006. In the meantime, we are going ahead with our preparations to put up a 
candidate. If you end up being found to have taken an irreversible decision 
to contest the election on your own terms, we will leave history to deliver 
its verdict.

If I fail to receive a positive response or a concrete proposal by Saturday 
I will issue a statement to call on the Gambian people to give full support 
to my candidature as the NADD flag-bearer.

To conclude allow me to say that history has record of the fact that we 
signed a Memorandum based on commitment. We registered NADD based on 
conviction. We lost our seats but still decided to stand under a NADD ticket 
based on conviction. NADD still exists because of that conviction to unite 
and bring about the minimum standard of democracy necessary to enable the 
people to take charge of their destiny and free themselves from impunity and 
self perpetuating rule in order to live in liberty and prosperity.

I hope we have reached a common understanding of what actually happened. If 
you disagree with my view I will be honoured if we meet at Father Farrell 
Hall to put our different positions to an audience in the interest of 
transparency and accountability, as we prepare the ground to challenge the 
APRC regime. We should clear the ground once and for all and restore the 
climate of respect that has always characterized our relationship.

Yours in the service of the Nation.

Halifa Sallah

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