Immigration Seizes OJ’s Passport

In an exclusive interview with The Point, Omar Jallow, former PPP Agriculture Minister in Jawara’s regime confirmed that two senior Immigration officers collected his passport Friday morning. “These two senior officers came to my house Friday morning saying that they were instructed by their Director to take my passport. I of course demanded for a receipt from them before handing it over to them. OJ wondered why he could not as a citizen enjoy priviledges and rights such as a passport which falls under that category. Jallow continued:

After eight years of administration, the regime still depicts the same military tendencies feeling it is above the law and the Constitution when we read about seminar on good governance in the papers.” He declared that the seizure of his passport is not only an abuse of his rights but an affront to the constitution. “If I had done anything wrong, the proper thing to do is to take me to a police station and charge me and not to come to my house and seize my passport without the authority of a magistrate and/or a court”. OJ felt that his recent engagement with the Commonwealth must have triggered the move to prevent him from undertaking other international engagements.

When reminded about the article published in our Friday edition, and in which he was quoted as saying “The elections in Zimbabwe differed only in degrees but the process was the same”, he concurred by emphasising the degree aspect of the similarities