The article below is written by Jungkunda Daffeh and it makes an interesting reading.
THE NEW MAJORITY
The new majority emerged in 1996 electing Yahya Jammeh as President and a majority APRC National Assembly.
Forged in the crucible of nation building for two years in the areas of health, education, communication and governance, it was crucial for the massive approval of the constitution of the 2nd Republic. The leadership of the new majority and the leaderships of the new minority opposition, are opposed face to face mediated by the binding character of national political identity and the forces that were, before 1996, railed against PPP. When that majority was already tired under its own overgrown weight, and reflecting the end of apologists for colonial legacies.
Completing the terminal condition, a new age of ideological clarifications hailed final volleys at the regime that had inherited colonialism. These demanded the restructuring of power within the nation state. A dominant role was designated for those who had returned from abroad. Sheriff Dibba, argued for enlightened leadership in the country, on his return from Brussels recalled as a diplomat.
And that the PPP edifice to crumble or at least split in so definitive a manner must be owed to other explanations, beyond the dissatisfaction of individuals in its leadership. Fundamental questions about the nature of the power that commanded the sentiments of men must be asked.
Whether or not such had been posed by Dibba of the PPP has remained theoretical since he had actually not succeeded in winning the presidency from Jawara's by the ballot, in which he clearly believed.
But as a political representative, he more than any of his contemporaries had delivered the goods to his constituents. The Central Bank of the Gambia and the later the disappointing Gambia Commercial and Development Bank as well as the National Trading Company were his handy works and brainchild. At his ministerial tenure the Gambia experienced the greatest expansion of its productive sector and of its prosecution of active labour prospering, and a vibrant trading sector.
But these were not enough to win him the love of his opponents in the cabinet high and hazy, none the less who had been forced to respect him. A man who served comments ahead of his time contracted from imperial commentators, later to be amplified by his former colleagues, of being a biggy. This is not, according to high intelligence which worked for his probable return to the fold, after 1980. At that time the Bolshevik leadership in the mass movement for Africa, in the Gambia section, spotted him the most consistent of his lot. And had moved to soften the bad mutual material diffident between the PPP and Gambia intelligentsia, starting from the days M.E. Jallow, who was a torn in the sides of the status quo.
If however, in the pull between this new majority and minority Mr. Dibba must take sides, how much does he have to offer to Gambia? He thinks youthful. But is there an NCP machinery in place, countrywide, to ignite the teams. We would see whether it is only a matter of past glories. Or will Mr. Dibba capture the historical imagination to some success that will organically link him with APRC's more forceful and youthful leadership at present in charge and in power?
Investors in the social order of things, are to be discovered in order to determine the intellectual objectivity of the perspective of national certainty in Dibba and the charging change that the new majority invest in Jammeh. How can conclusion be wrung from the opposition and unity of forces that surge the battery of energy by which a republic is propelled?
But to roundly capture any impression an exhaustive excavation of the structure of the new majority first. That which elected Jammeh to borrow from the hieracly of bees and humans, are workers, guards and their own home makers. Their hands are rough, their minds are not blunted by dope, they can sting as sentinels to the new rewards of their our institutions.
They are in the estimation of those deposed, as the paraphrase of Sir Lawrence Parsons, speaking in 1793 against the forty shilling catholic Irish Franchise:
If they had all been Protestant fifty generations back, I would not consent to the overwhelming of the constitution by such a torrent … a copious adulteration of rabble … I do not now desire you to consider them as differing from you in religion, but merely in their poverty, their numbers, their ignorance, their barbarous ignorance, many of them not being able even to speak our language, and then think whether giving them the franchise will not be a most pernicious vitiation of the Constitution … By granting franchise to the inferior catholic you give it to a body of men in great poverty, in great ignorance, bigoted to their sect and their altars, repelled by ancient prejudices from you, and at least four ties as numerous as you are.
At the new millenium the New York Times of 6 August 1994 described the majority of Gambians who supported the Lieutenants coup d'etat in similar words and spite and condescension.
But this rabble mass compares better with any previous old social class in power. The rough edge of power, far from being a transgression of democracy, confirms the historical need of establishing order and protecting the machinery against the restoration of the deposed. They demonstrated for acumen years, that they can acquire the competence and intelligence to consolidate their power. This necessarily is not to the liking of the minority opposition, which uses its social connections to entrench itself in its now newly aggressive press. But in this area too the new majority put up a fight. To preen any notions of a monolithic heard, a vibrant debate among itself raged on and had been represented in the new parties of NRP and PDOIS. Not only that these parties represented parliamentary and political party oppositions, they represented dissent within the new majority of the second republic. They voted for that Constitution. These leadership might not always reflect the dialectics of unity and opposition of any social body but the nationalist character of their disagreements with Jammeh, distinguishes them form the rancous and the retrogressive UDP - (PPP). The NCP was the banned. This use minority speaks of rarefied rule of law founded in King James counter - reformation, searching and seizing land by church and state where so ever "heathens" and "rabble mass are found on gods earth". For UDP not seeking this King's consent was blasphemy.
Our historians, diplomats, journalists, must now on contest with how Gambia remained under the rule of Jawara's PPP for thirty straight years? British policy of indirect rule, the setting up of the interior against the colony enclaves, promoted division. The moderate catharsis from the position of colonists, was Jawara's intellectual biases. So all that was good was to be found inherently in this colonial division. But M. E. Jallow's labour Movement at the same time fulfilled a national resistance, which was never quelled by famished designs. These are the sources of confrontations of the nations aspirations against patriarch and paternalism that Jawara played to the full. This is not a falsification of history. It is rather a deeper reading of Gambian history, which stands opposed to colonial textbook rationals.
The new majority needs cultural and intellectual allies. The range of specialization's of the trained human resources that the capacities of national professionals turn into value must be accorded their due. In terms of output and performance this specialized group has to add its by brain and hand to efforts steering around obstacles to the of the good of the new majority. This majority has seated power by electing and reaffirming a former soldier at the head of the state. It has broken with naivete: that other modern nations have introduced the element of military formation in the foundations of government in good historical basis. No nation an durably develop without deliberate and purposeful devicing of its own means. It calls for precision and result. These have, in some influential other traditions, a current of nebulous distain for these new of developments. It reassures us however that this current has never won out as the main impact in economic and social development. In fact it proves that to be loafy and laisez - faire, derives from more heinous malaise: divorce from production. The consequent lack of integration of intellectual training and biases into the national production ignition. These are due to the weakness of liberal education. These are not however insurmountable. The opportunity to excel granted by the challenge to rise to the occasion, to integrate the general laws of science into specific needs of a low productive economy and the attendant backwardness of social forms, be they administrative or organic. The administrative aspect is first and all the two way appreciation of trained output by both those in service and there producers of national wealth otherwise the new majority. As important the take home pay that morally motivates those who have put a life time's service to national development.
Those among us, who are free from reticent by service rules, anachronistic, must turn their influence, in the case of former diplomats and international civil servants to the need to enhance the levels of national cohesion already initiated by the inclusion of a larger Gambia for freedom.
This freedom is tangible. It is the initiatives of indigence power, started by not diffident in its own. It promises a condition to arrest the decline of excellence and standard of scientific and intellectual achievement, creeping in since the 1980s.
This had been disastrous to national and to African orientation presence and role in providing for herself. That is why in our national idioms the words "insecurity of tenure" have replaced the fear of marginalization. Not satisfactory, but a restated search.
Kingley Amis captured the sentiments of the groundswell of anti-tory feeling in England's 1945 Atlee's labour victory - a new stout majority:
Something monstrous and indefinable was growing in strength, something hostile to his accent and taste in clothes and modest directorship and ambitions for his sons and redbrick house at Purley with its back-garden tennis court.
Kingley's suspicious are abruptly materialized when labour's friendless Mr. Jack in town wins an 18,000 majority. But the genuine middle class in Gambian does not feel this gulf of "they and us" about the new majority. Because that middle class form the halls power on of the school with an objective historical mission. It had guided the young independent nation with exemplary competence.
It was the first national administrators. Its misfortune, which was the country's was that the Gambian body politic - a family with the wrong members in control, - might be sharply rearranged. In the popular regard the APRC, the new majority and its own opposition, is the party that stands for small people, and are for health, schools for school children and so on, rather than a party that stands for big words and rote.
And it might be added that the UDP - PPP coalition stand for appeasement and past stagnation. They can be equaled the British Conservative party's talk of socialist - Gestates in July 1945. Churchill an incongruous figure. As a party politician, Mr. Dabo is as unconvincing as his continuants complacent self-serving: the old majority's special pleading.. Self-contrived and morally trivial.
The Gambian intelligentia in the educated middle classes have a place in the development agenda of the new majority. Its propertied interest in a world economy and market that is synonymous with domination by a few nations can be served by new link with a national production base. In turn this will develop its capacity to find solutions to the problems of government that for us hangs its economic substance. The problems of government are not restricted to bureaucracy and solitary pursuits, but include scientific reform, and know how in the methods levy, revenue and fiscalities. Globalization is not an unstoppable delude that must favor the free market force, of one dominants nation. No body has to be a maroon to it. Our middle classes have the special social and cultural advantage to stand up for the nation. The popular genius recognizes and welcomes this asset in its ranks. Because this genius prospers in peace. And it is peace not poison that is the friend of democracy. And social revolutions shed off its coat of uncompromises to wear a sleeve of habit of compromises as soon as it has donned itself. A wide ranging reform of the nations institutions that the middle classes can be won to, for expertise and selflessness is undoubtedly present in the Gambia since 1994.
LITMUS AND ACID
Students world-wide have been torch bearers for change. In The Gambia as else where they have the right to disseminate the benefits of high education to the citizens, who are their parents and those who pay for the cost of government, as a right. The staggering dead of 12 and more students confounds the usually complacent population and it could not be laid to rest. The public debate on Tuesday, aftermath of the blood bath, showed as much that we have a national crisis as the incomprehension of the security forces and the gravity of their actions.
It would be a tragedy if us the other citizens allow the students to be isolated and victimized, one by one. They have shown of being a promise, by standing by their female colleague and by Ebrima Barry, the unfortunate and innocent young man. The brutality with which the security forces tortured him and his untimely dead and the insensitivity of the teacher and that made the police officers intrude the sanctify of academic freedom, create doubts in our minds about quality in our academic life and the competence of the academic staff.
With combine single voice across the nation, the students spoke and acted as one man. The question that needs to be asked, is who gave orders to use live-bullets against defenseless and innocent students? What were the rules of engagement of these orders. These questions, students as well as all Gambians want an answer to. The immediate cause of the violence must be put squarely on the doorsteps of the government and its leaders. They have innocent blood on their hands. The pathetic engagement of unequal forces, dawns a dangerous precedence that cannot go unpunished.
The dead of innocent students in the hands of their own fellow nationals concerned citizens, cannot allow the behaviors of the law enforcement officers to be described as anything less than an act of barbarism. The Gambian students are not alone in these questions of fundamental rights. Well beyond our great country they are not alone in this struggling times. Throughout the continent, students have shown, in most cases, their responsibility and commitment, to issues of national concern, whether this is in Burkina-Faso or in South Africa. This spirit of political dynamism has proved to the students that the state is an ass and that they must be heard.
And the population would not stand by and let them down. They are no bandits or irresponsible idlers but seeds of the future who were answering to the call of their historical responsibility.
We must without doubt be able to question who is responsible for their murder, who gave the command to the rank and file of the soldiers, to commit such heinous crime. Such an answer will lay the grounds for a new political situation in this country.
Leadership requires the ability to articulate the voices of people as one combined by circumstances. The purpose of this responsibility is to raise higher the quality of democratic ideals. It is a matter of principles, conviction and fraternity to roundly condemn violent death in cold blood. The fascist murder of Journalist and Red Cross Volunteer Omar Barrow will go down in the annals of history as cowardly and a violation of international justice. It is a transgression of the Geneva rules of neutrality and conscience.
When the apparatus seems to become unpredictable in its co-ordination, democratic principles that constitutions theoretically contend, become stretched between the effects of elections and election systems as with the political rights that can be asserted by others not sharing the position of the status quo. Conflict can break into the open. Negotiations need to be brokered by those who still have their bearings. A judiciary inquiry should be setup as well as a corona's inquest. This starts with the status quo setting no limits on expression of freedom. There cannot be any qualification of this truth.
It is the first and final rule of student politics that student demands for their rights provide the prism for any reactions to their actions. The chronicle of pursue and destroy which we see in the action of the security forces is at the heart of the misconception of authority that power is sancrosant and a monopoly. Army Chief of Staff Jatta and Interior Secretary Badjie had every opportunity to satisfy themselves to the independence of actions of 10th April.
It is time to break the silence.
INDEMNITY: ITS CONTEXTS AND ISSUES
(Nurturing the 2nd Republic)
"Hear no more of the faith of men but bind them down with the Chains of the Constitution", Benjamin Franklin.
This Constitutional Chain was the change in matters of government, which provided for structural powers among three branches of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial.
This earliest of written Constitutions opened out duties and responsibilities of each branch and with each branch serving a check on the powers of other branches. It also fixed up of the problems of the Articles of the viability and endurance of the American Confederation by providing for strong Central Government and External Defence.
In the modern state, this power is exercised over a wide range of Government Organizations and programs. These organization and programs have found juridical cases to be vocal and to express some of the views that might have not been covered by the exercise of power by mandate. This is how in the processes of Government, Civil Society of Professional Organizations, Trade Unions and other interests in politics came to e catered for, but in no instance can they supplant government proper, including parliamentary political opposition or existing political parties.
The weakness of the American constitutional regime is acknowledged in this member, so that the house of representatives designed to have an immediate dependence on and an intimate sympathy with the common people, is elected in a rapidly succeeding two years. Elected every two years members campaign for re-election constantly and the interest of the electorate are cause to be championed by the system. Or so it is designed.
Hence press coverage and public opinion organs tend, in this scheme of things, to reflect the common heritage of the American Union and its popular sovereign. However, the more exclusive senate electoral for six years tenure tends to be more collegial and regards less the popular perceptions. It is, for one, neither immediate and but more insensitive to recall. A close up to its activities shows them concern with the attributes of nobility, rather than peoples empowerment.
Indeed to retain respect for laws that would have to pass through this device, one must not watch them in the making. A pertinent point is that the left legitimizes itself by the reflecting democratic canon rather than the general rules kept dormant and accessible only to the noble who are also the powerful.
The judicial is an out and out organization of the representatives of estates, looking over the said common laws, from the tower of their own unchallenged vision of man. The constitution of the United States gives congress the general power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports and excise and to pay the debts and upgrade for the concerns of defence. Because of this and where this is not eroded by other impacting claims.
The weakness of the non-elected nature of the judicial is license to maintain a cadre system of robes and besieged justice by mobilizing privilege and bias of deep seated prejudice.
In America, this we noted in counter-revolution. But France would provide humanity its identity with founding ideas and values. France asserted its identity as a nation on 14th July 1789. A year after the fall of the Bastilles delegates from all over the country met as the first revolutionary act by the people against the arbitrary power of the royality.
In the United States, as compared to other major industrial countries, are less than one-quarter of workers covered by union collective agreements. In 1991, union membership in US stood at 16% and 18% of employed civilian wage and salary workers.
In this interesting discussion of freedom that underline the methods of scientific investigation, the United States depicts a restrictive government in these processes and procedures. For example, in that country, the rules of the bargaining process and some internal procedures of unions are established by legislation. US collective agreements are typically whole specified both in terms of procedures and outcomes.
In Britain, before Thatcher, the rules of the bargaining process were left to the unions. Only after and with Margaret Thatcher did it move to a conservative rightist legislation for the regulation of internal union procedures.
In the Gambia, Jawara's Minister of justice and State Attorney General had used anti-union legislation to "de-register" and effectively ban the formidable organization of the Gambia Workers Union led y M. E. Jallow, the man who forced Britain to seriously discuss de-colonization in the Gambia for the first time. The government hid behind the Veil of regularizing union accounts. The focus of the state was not the examination of the making up of wages and employment or productivity and membership. That is why that regime, following on the body of that action also banned the MOJA (G) as a political movement. That organization's large student memberships can certify to them.
The declaration of the rights of man and the citizen of 26th August 1789 was of universal application. This first constitution of 1791 was to inform in specific and unconditional terms, the Paris commune as forerunner to the Bolshevik government that followed in Great Russia. Fifteen other constitution were to follow on the ground in France leading to the 1958 constitution in effect today and by which the French colonies signaled their nationhood by referandum.
In Africa, Guinea stood out among the rest. This provides the democratic basis for the Gambia to later to file for nationhood, February 18, 1965..
The principle of national sovereignty as opposed to royal pleasure of England, was proclaimed for men and women as citizens for the first time.
The King's vacillation in France, which in the American form was the erosion of the power of the people by interpellation of competing interests, had sometimes had adverse effect. But in France the flight of the king to Varennes and the appeal to foreign forces to intervene against the nation led to the downfall of the constitutional monarchy.
The inspired imagination can see this process of restoration against the people at work in the Jawara's appeal to Diouf's intervention in first major crisis of the first republic. The recent effort by a disloyal opposition to bring down sanctions by the British Commonwealth on the Gambia's second republic is an instance. And by extension to lend the debate on indemnity an acrimonious and an ahistorical twist.
But again in France, after the attack on the Tuilaries Palace on 10th 1792, the first republic was proclaimed and lasted for seven years. A straight line of constitutional development did not succeed in the erosion of popular will and it's replacement by noble robes of courts and senates.
The months of the Paris Commune, led by early communists was to explode the pretensions of the exclusive power of private property and its appropriation. This gave France and the World, the first example of a government based on countervailing power to privilege in property and rank.
The debate on indemnity in the Gambia and its outcomes would be set in the context of the historical divide accounted here. For Democratic development this will give us a new and present day relevance. The heart of the matter to the April 10th and 11th incidents.
New social indicators
The woman vote
History and Economy
The finding of The Gambia
Brief Political History
Migration into the Area
Colonalisation and Independence
What laws, Politics and Practices these Brought
Description of Economy
Male Migration, Urbanization
Industrialization
Cash and Subsistence Cropping in the Rural Areas
When all the conditions by which a group stands out in specific and particular attributes different from any other, and most irrevocably accepted and enforced as rights and recognized in practices, does the discussion become legitimate as issues of policy and polity.
Gambian women have achieved the status of free persons formally recognized in the rights of women in section 28 Sub-section (1) and (2) of the Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia, 1996.
We should distinguish between the main current and the minor currents in life. Only when we focus on the main current can we give a Typical presentation of the essence of social advance. Minor currents merely offer a contrast to the main current and can be used as a means to present the essence, forming a subordinate aspect of the whole, and partial and temporary twists in the course of advance, never to be regarded as the main content of life. (Yao Wea-yuan) - Chinese social theoretician.
These powerfully put the plain observations on the life of a group, embodied the scientific principles that our introduction merely assumed and that the rights of women as recognized in the fundamental law the Constitution, is a case of the power by which all actions by any others, including the state, affecting women must take notice of. Otherwise the full sanctions of sovereign authority must be brought to bear.
HISTORY AND ECONOMY
Civilization flourished in the banks of The Gambia River for many centuries. The Gambian stone circles complex form the southern part of a larger Sene-Gambian stone circles integral that extends north from the River Gambia to the River Saloum in Senegal. As an indication of level of civilization on the banks of the River, it is found that "In a spectacular fashion, stones in any one circle are always the same height. The largest stones reach 7 tons in weight". Historical systems recognize the interpretation of high levels of social organization of this labour. It was from this civilization that the nation state of The Gambia forged the boundaries of a country that was indigenously governed.
Because of strife in the region, ranging from the trans Sahara caravan and slave trade, the internal cohesions of the state's were undermined. And this presented two contradictory historical currents: productive surplus for trade and sufficient military weakness to enable colonization in the (18th century). Then the present boundaries of The Gambia were delineated.
Running along these lines, it is clear that modern colonially inhabited Gambia, starting with Lord Lugard's dual mandate had existed for some 300 years. The dual mandate worked out a benign compromise which guaranteed colonial authority and exploited the economy through the mandate of the chiefs who were caretakers in most part of the country called the protectorate. And the colonial economy and the needs of taxation restricted now the movement of populations: migration.
In the period before independence, the economy operated along export agriculture and the import of finished products from the factories of Europe. The maintenance of the administration of the colony and the protectorate of The Gambia through expatriate European officers who alone have the power to raise taxes soon uncovered the contradictions that would result into movement for representation late on (19th century). It would be sometime, however, before this matured.
The right to taxation and the canon power to enforce it made up the fundamental law that finalized the seal of colonial domination. In this period economic and political initiatives slipped from indigenous authority and national priorities. Functions of the population were again the dictates of the British monarch and business trading houses. Gambians, whether women or men, had lost the rights and decisions based merely on the economic laws of comparative advantage. These developments pushed the contradictions that were gender sensitive and an important aspect of the contradictions that are the charge of the scientific division of labour and specialization that are to be resolved, turned into a complex of a dominated nation. The nation which populations had lost the rights of peoples and has essentially become an appendage to the political, economic and national dictates of Britain, went hand in hand with revolts by the nationals.
However, the lost of national prerogatives had dire consequence for the population and, women severely affected.
MODERN TIMES
To look in the genesis of discrimination and disadvantage for women, the more inter penetrating laws of social investigations in the lives and the property of working and trading women, that have found themselves in litigation against the wealthiest and originally, the politically most powerful family in The Gambia, will be employed in the thematic experiment.
This method has ground breaking results in a Mexican village by Lewis and a main land Chinese village by Myrdal, a complete generation apart.
The case came before the high court and judgement rendered dated 17th January 1983. The legal issues themselves, which in 1999 were challenged by the ward of Llolly Ndoye, Mamy Camara, in possession, of the suit land in Serrekunda proper, is simply a case of a girl relative who gave all her labour and pulled all her resources with a trading aunt in diverse areas of the provinces from the 40s to the 70s. from the trading and savings activities, a property was bought, and in which she lived and was brought up in by Anty Llolly. The property is now prime land in the most populated town in The Gambia and in the economic and speculative market square of Serrekunda.
The thematic issue is whether Mamy Camara has any claims of inheritance and ownership, both in descent and in right to earnings. The 1983 judgement relying in the law, submitted that in itself did not decide the disposition of the property but simple stated that Ramatoulie Joof, an older relative of aunt Llolly Ndoye was "entitled to take out letters of an administration in respect of the estate of Llolly Ndoye - deceased".
The opponent contention is that Mamy Camara has brought her challenge too late to court. And that the law stipulated a certain time limit in which the matter can be reopened for a court case. So she shouldn’t be heard. Because statue barred. This particular contention is being presently challenged, from all indications by an able lawyer for Mamy Camara.
The familial, filial and economic questions most provide the fabric of public law. The Estate of Llolly Ndoye (Deceased) being woman, and the estate of Alhaji Momodou Musa Njie (Deceased) male, can provide in this case,
Ground breaking results for women. Surface interface of some aspect of transfer of some portion of the suited land not withstanding. Mamy presently lives on the property and has always, with her children. She has built and lives in the house of modern housing prerequisite in urban greater Banjul.
Could all these be precarious in the late 2000?
Mamy says she has always been in possession, and had never lost her rights and she was only formalizing these by court action..
HOW JOURNALISM SHOULD BE:
THE APPARATUS
Political reporters joggled with several questions for alliances in the run up to October elections, as a sample of the questions posted to Sheriff Dibba shows. This reporter cover it.
The maiden open press conference given by the NCP Presidential candidate on August 15 was keenly tacked by both the press and Mr. Dibba, the press talked so among itself. To justify this impression, some of the common themes of the questions, asked by about a dozen reporters from all the media houses and some international press bodies, clearly struck at the core of the issues troubling many Gambian minds. What were the pieces and nature of publicly known negotiations among the opposition political parties and the politicians? Mr. Dibba succeeded in baring the complex problems of political horse trading and how differences can be overcome as he clarified.
But rather negotiations broke down than bearing fruit because the inter party talks were neither conclusive nor all inclusive, he opined. The absence of PDOIS and NRP to create the needed balance of forces to broker an acceptable outcome between the claims of the PPP - UDP on one side and NCP on another, was the price paid for lack of political thoroughness and the make haste make waste which beset the talks, Mr. Dibba explained.
He clarified that the unbanned parties of PPP, GPP and NCP consulted among themselves which extended to include the existing opposition parties of NRP, PDOIS and UDP. But, he said, this enlarged potential grouping wasn’t pursued to the end. A press release prepared by Mrs. Mariam Denton of UDP and from which the Daily Observer made a lead story this week, obscured the truth and was calculated to play off the voters against the NCP, Mr. Dibba observed.
If any political opposition party can dislodge Mr. Jammeh by the ballot, it was the NCP, he butted. He moved that the battle could be made much easier if the opposition agreed on one coalition presidential candidate.
The consultations were weakened by one sided-ness, lack of fair-mindedness and polity, as well as treachery which countenanced self-interests, he regretted.
Reporters asked how did he hope the situation can be saved now? Mr. Dibba replied that be was still opened to talks, without prearranged schemes.
And Badara Sidibe, a NCP lieutenant explained that NCP proposed two options. The first option was to agree on a single Presidential Candidate for the oppositions, come October. The second option was for all to back the candidate with largest number of votes, if there comes a second round.
And when some reporters wondered if the old PPP - NCP rivalry was not mutually locking out, Mr. Dibba was quick to butt that the NCP had buried the hatchet and it was a new situation. But this reporter had picked on that thread earlier and asked Mr. Dibba if the different principles that informed the various opposition political parties were not irreconcilable for a fact and reflected the social nature of the groups? He picked it up quickly and conceded that there can be a new reality and that the NCP leadership had suffered under the rules of Jammeh and Jawara, but that NCP stands for principles of Gambia first.
It would be recalled that Mr. Dibba was incarcerated under Jawara for 11 months in 1981 on charges of treason, treasonable felony and misprisonment of treason. He was later cleared off the charges by the courts. He was represented by lawyer Ousainou Darboe, the UDP presidential candidate a aided by overwhelming evidence offered by the diplomat and former Inspector General of Police Abdoulie Mboob and the late Malick Lowe, Mayor of Banjul and prominent Gambia businessman. And the 7 years ban of NCP amongst others, under Jammeh, he took in strides, saying that his silence was deliberate, wishing to keep the Gambia out of the troubles that woed many in the region.
JUNKUNDA DAFFEH
PEACE
Tombong