I hope that the UDP-led Alliance takes very seriously Gabriel Roberts’ wild
accusations and twisted logic.  The Alliance should not just stop at
debunking Roberts in the press, but Roberts should be sued for his comments.
  This man is a clear partisan - behaves like a card-carrying APRC stalwart;
I would not be surprised to learn that he is a card-carrying member.

What is baseless here is Roberts’ decision at the eleventh hour (during the
presidential election) to use an ‘un-vetted’ List in order to determine who
is supposed to vote in our elections.  It is just pathetic to read people
like Gabriel Roberts.  He said he based his reason to use the ‘counter-foil’
on the advise from the ‘British Expert’.  Did Roberts receive that advise on
the night of October 17, 2001?  Of course the decision was NOT based on that
‘advise’. The decision is BASELESS.  Roberts ‘overturned’ the laws and used
the ‘counter-foil’ because APRC had already gone on record with the BBC that
there was no way they were going to accept a ‘register’ they did not doctor.
  I wonder who Gabriel Roberts thinks he is dealing with.  He might have
gotten so used to the APRC mental midgets that he thinks he is always
dealing with morons.  This man was confronted at a press conference with
illegal voter cards that were found in the hands of aliens.

Cornered, he announced that only voters whose names were on the final
register would be allowed to vote.  This was after October 14, 2001 when
Roberts said that the List was given to the Parties.  This decision from
Roberts was also made after the ‘British Expert’ had already rendered his
report.  Roberts made this decision in front of the Commonwealth ‘Observers’
and the national and international press.  That decision was subsequently
rescinded.  So, how could Roberts argue that his eleventh-hour decision on
October 17, 2001 was based on the advise from the British Expert that was
given days before his flip-flop.  If Roberts was going by the expert advise,
he would not go to a press conference (and when confronted with blatant
evidence of illegal registration) and say that the October 14 List would be
used.  This man is just a shameless sycophant.

And he has the audacity to castigate people that questioned the
effectiveness of the judiciary in expunging aliens from our voter rolls.  I
challenge Roberts and his cohorts to show us how many aliens the magistrates
expunged from the registers.  If there are any, it would be a negligible
figure.  Meanwhile, Senegalese border patrol was apprehending Casamance
people returning home after partaking in our elections.  What is Gabriel
Roberts smoking?  What did the Chief Justice do about reports that Baabaa
Jobe was literally controlling ‘challenge’ proceedings in some magistrate
courts set up to hear challenges?  Absolutely nothing.  How many aliens did
Roberts expunge from the List?  Zero.  Did Roberts expect the Opposition to
scrutinize the List between October 14 and October 17 to ensure that only
eligible Gambians were on the List?  Three days to go over 500,000 names?
And to add insult to injury the man waited until few hours before people
were supposed to go to the polls and hoist on us another list.  This man
wanted to plunge the country into turmoil.  What would have happened if on
that day (because of his ridiculous and cowardly decision) Opposition
stalwarts stood at polling stations and denied people they perceived to be
aliens the ‘right’ to vote?  The Opposition exercised ‘restraint’ and went
ahead with the voting and now Roberts is holding that against them.  Now
this man is shamelessly saying that the Opposition should have challenged
him when he made his ill-advised decision on October 17.  I hate to say that
I told them so.  But I foresaw this day coming.  Roberts should have been
taken on during the presidential campaign.  This should teach the Opposition
a lesson not to pretend to stay above the fray.  Enter into the gutter with
the vermin and smoke them out.  Roberts and his cohorts have shown Darboe
and the Opposition that they would have had more ‘respect’ for Darboe had he
played hardball with them and contested the electoral malpractices from the
get go.  You play with these people with kids’ gloves, you lose out.  What
Roberts et al would have respected would be for Darboe to ask his supporters
to attack the TV station and torch the place to ensure that Roberts does not
announce bogus results.  That is the language these people understand.
Darboe did the responsible thing and restrained his people and now the
vermin are ‘mocking’ him.  I hope the Opposition learns from this experience
and be better prepared next time.

Unless the voter registers are sanitized, the genuine Opposition should not
partake in these bogus elections.  We need a register that only contain
names that have been vetted through a ‘challenge’ process.  The ‘challenge’
process has to be transparent and impartial.  Baabaa Jobe should not be
allowed to hold a gun against the head of magistrates deciding who should be
on the registers.  Short of a comprehensive register, these ‘elections’ do
not mean a thing.  Let the Dictatorship dominate the parliament and allow
the mental midgets to debate amongst themselves.  I did not know whether to
laugh or cry this morning when I saw Fatumata Jahumpa’s ridiculous comments
that Alliance supporters should sue the Alliance to force them to partake in
the elections.  How bizarre can these people get?  Is she telling us that
Gambians now have legal rights against people they want to represent them?
Can I sue Darboe to force him to run for bogus elections?  Geez.
KB


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