Fabakary Tombong Jatta has prayed for APRC’s reunion with former President Yahya Jammeh.

Jammeh fled to Equatorial Guinea shortly after the 2016 presidential election – which he refused to acknowledge resulting in Ecowas sending in troops into the country.

His supporters have long called for his return to the country.

On Saturday, the party’s interim leader Fabakary Tombong Jatta offered prayers for the former leader to return to the country at the start of the new year.

“May we spend the start of 2021 with Yahya Jammeh here in The Gambia,” Jatta speaking at APRC’s youth rally in Jabang said.

FTJ also called on APRC supporters to ignore critics and focuse on the future.

“The tongue has no head. Anyone says whatever you like. But if you’re someone who isn’t God-fearing, you could say something that’s not true. So let’s ignore whatever talk is going on and focus on the future,” he said.

Touma Njai has blasted as embarrassing the decision of NAMs to allocate themselves a 54 million dalasis loan in the 2021 budget.

Seventeen NAMs on Friday agreed to a proposal for a loan of over 50 million dalasis for themselves to build their houses.

“Seeing NAMS approve a GMD54M is not only embarrassing, but contradictory to the statements most held on to and tried holding the Government accountable for,” Touma Njai who did not agree to the proposal wrote Sunday.

The Banjul South representative wrote further: “Seeing resources moved from primary and most needed facilities made me more mad. I asked myself, are we really ready for Game?

“We indeed have a long way to go. I shall continue giving my all to the people that I represent . Their interest shall always be my priority.”

Fabakary Tombong Jatta has said no one ever thought President Adama Barrow and Ousainou Darboe would ever be at odds.

President Adama Barrow looked up to UDP leader as his political father but his sensational decision to fire Darboe from his government early last year left some sections of the Gambian public with gaping mouths.

And speaking at the APRC youth rally in Jabang on Saturday, APRC interim leader FTJ stated: “No one thought President Adama Barrow and Ousainou Darboe would fall out. If you think about what Ousainou used to say and compare it to what he says today. If you think about what President Barrow used to say and think about what he says today. So we should accept that God is God.

“But I we should not allow people to be coming to us and using us especially the youths. The problem we are in today as a country is caused by all of them (coalition members).”

President Adama Barrow on Saturday launched the electricity expansion project of Kiang saying it was confirmation of his government’s sincerity to its promise of change.

“This historic event, held in the heart of Kiang, is to inaugurate another significant project that targets underserved communities in the country. It is a confirmation of my government’s sincerity to its promise of change, and its devotion to developing the entire Gambian nation through the National Development Plan (NDP) we developed together,” the president said at the inauguration event held in Kiang Kwinella.

The people of Kiang and beyond turned out to witness the ceremony which has now paved the way for Kiang to join other regions of the country in enjoying electricity.

According to the president, the occasion is “one of a series of similar events signifying that, without doubt, my Government rejects discrimination, and it is a government for all Gambians, all regions, all districts and all communities”.

“In consequence, we will continue to reach out to all marginalised and disadvantaged communities as we progress with our development endeavour. We have one common interest that envelopes the whole nation as a united and prosperous family, bound by a common destiny,” the president said.

Dr Ismaila Ceesay vowed on Saturday not to allow anyone stop Citizens’ Alliance from contributing its quota to national development – as CA officially ratified his leadership of the party.

CA on Saturday held its first national congress which has churned out Dr Ismaila Ceesay as its leader and presidential candidate.

And speaking shortly after the unveiling of the CA executive at The Star Bi Theatre in Brikama, Dr Ceesay said: “This is a very important day. I would like to begin by saying how humbled I am by the trust and confidence bestowed on me to lead this great party. I can still remember the early days when we started…

“Some said, ‘they are just wasting their time, ‘these kids do not know themselves and they will not go anywhere. But they do not know that statement fires us up. They would ask the young people to contribute to national development. Is that not what they have been saying? We got up to develop the country and they then say ‘you are those who can build the country’. But we will make sure that no one takes us back in terms of what we want to do for the country.”

Mai Fatty reproduced Saturday comments he wrote three days before the December 2016 presidential election when the opposition coalition was campaigning.

On 28 November 2016, Mai Fatty said he had written that, “following an all-night (non stop) campaign, Coalition 2016 leaders at Brikama this afternoon on a brief pause. Together our common future beckons today. Going forth together in peace as one nation indivisible, we pray that Almighty God guides our actions towards our common prosperity.” The opposition coalition campaign had made a brief stop in Brikama where he made the comments, he said.

And the GMC leader has now used 28 November 2020 to cast his mind back to what he said four years ago.

“This collective national victory is now being usurped by one individual who claimed to have killed the lion alone, and all by himself,” he however said alongside a photo of himself annd President Barrow.

It is a Saturday packed with events which could see Gambian journalists improvise in order to be able to cover all of the events.

President Adama Barrow will spend the day in Kiang to inaugurate the region’s electricity after years of work.

In Brikama, Citizens’ Alliance will hold its first national congress since the party was formed. The party will later in the day hold a rally in the large town.

In Jabang, APRC will hold a major rally there as the party remains locked in boosting its chances ahead of next year.

Elsewhere on Kairaba Avenue, scores of Gambians marched early Saturday against cyber bullying.

At least 24 MPs on Thursday agreed with their colleague Yakumba Jaiteh for a multi-million dalasis loan scheme that NAMs could access to help them build their houses.

On Thursday, nominated MP Yakumba Jaiteh made a proposal as part of the 2021 budget for a loan scheme that could run up to 54 million dalasis.

“Hon speaker, it is in the constitution that as National Assembly Members, we decide our salaries and benefits and allowances. This is a benefit that we’re trying to get here. This is law, we are making law here, we can make it now and it becomes law,” Ms Jaiteh in defending her proposal said.

It was initially backed by over two dozens of her colleagues on Thursday; it then passed on Friday following a vote by 17 NAMs in favour of the proposal. Some either did not take part in the voting or voted against it.

But on Thursday, the one lawmaker contingent that spoke with one voice against the loan is the PDOIS NAMs led by Halifa Sallah.

“I was just going to proposed that such a matter should be something that the Office of the Clerk should have negogiated in the bilaterals and move into that issue. Because it’s a complex issue.

“And it is important that members think about certain welfare but how we move to deal with it is also a matter of decency and real integrity.

“Because the issue here is we have taken from a particular institution, an independent institution certain resources by virtue of the fact that we believe the task we are to do is also in the national interest, so we do not see any personal gain emanating from it. But if we take from an institution and turn it into personal gain, well obviously we cannot defend integrity,” Sallah warned on Thursday.

His fellow PDOIS MP Suwaibou Touray had earlier said: “We have only one year to leave this office. So if you take loan which is a building loan when are you going to finish paying that? Do you leave here and leave your loan behind?”

Banjul North’s Ousman Sillah said he feared double standard in the proposal on the part of the lawmakers.

“It’s the same principle with National Audit Office. We asked them to revise that (travel expenditure) and yet we want to give it to the national assembly. The issue is that let us not be seen as playing double standard,” Sillah argued.

However, Serrekunda West MP insisted loans are not ‘gifts’ and it was not compulsory for an MP to take the whole sum.

“We know we have less than two years to go [in office], so it will not make sense for anybody to go and take the whole D800,000. And this is not a gift, it’s not an expenditure perse. I’m in full support of it,” Madi Ceesay said.

The finance minister Mambury Njie was at some point asked about his opinion and he said it wasn’t ideal for the NAMs to try to have loan scheme for themselves squeezed into the already drawn 2021 budget.

“What the Hon Member from Serrekunda said is correct. What he said, taking from here and putting it as a loan scheme, I don’t think it’s ideal. I think we go back, even if we have to come with SAP, I think procedurally, I think that’s the right thing to do,” Njie said.

MP Muhammed Magassy gave Swaibou Touray a piece of his mind after the Wulli East MP complained that he was speaking too much.

Members of the National Assembly on Friday gathered to scrutinise the 2021 budget but the committee stage session came with mild drama from Basse’s Muhammed Magassy.

The Basse MP had requested for the floor to speak but Wulli East’s Suwaibou Touray wasn’t liking it.

“Hon Member for Wulli East, nobody disturbs him but he doesn’t want to allow anybody to express your view. If he is speaking nobody stops him,” Magassy complained.

“No, you took the floor three times,” Touray fired back.

Magassy then blasted: “If you don’t want to hear us, you have an option to go out. I can repeat myself as much as I want. I am not out of order. Anytime I take the floor he has to cut me.”

A Papa Faal administration will establish healthy lifestyle education programs for youths that will include those that will help end unsafe sex among youths.

Former president Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara’s grandson Faal has announced he will run for president next year.

And if he should succeed in residing at No. 1 Marina Parade, Faal will introduce programs that will promote healthy lifestyles among the country’s youths, a manifesto seen by The Fatu Network revealed.

The Team 2021 government says it shall ensure a greater part of its focus be on developing both the physical and mental capacity of Gambian youths.

In the area of healthy lifstyle, the team said it will ‘establish the Healthy-Lifestyle Education Programs (HEPY) to promote a healthy lifestyle for the youth and ensure a campaign of zero tolerance to drugs and alcohol, and discourage unsafe sex through abstinence’.

According to the document, despite constituting over 60 percent of Gambia’s population, the plight of the younger generation has never been dire.

By Al Jazeera

A Danish minister has caused outrage among the Muslim minority for suggesting imams and community leaders should publicly support the “right” to have sex before marriage for women.

Mattias Tesfaye, foreign affairs and integration minister, said in a Facebook post last month, after meeting with some Muslim leaders: “I asked them very directly if they would say out loud and clear in public that Muslim women, of course, have the right to sex before marriage just like all other women.”

In an editorial in the Danish paper, Dagbladet Information, also published in October, Tesfaye wrote: “I hear that some Muslim women fear that they will not bleed on the wedding night. They are afraid of being beaten because the family expects them to be virgins on the wedding night.

“It is your life and your choice. Do not let yourself be ruled by either imams or outdated norms.”

Hediye Temiz, who at 22 is one of the youngest city council members in Denmark, in the city of Albertslund, said Tesfaye’s approach was misguided.

“He wants to solve (Muslim women’s) problems, but I think the way he tries to solve it isn’t the right way,” said Temiz, adding that she joined politics because she was frustrated with the way Muslims were talked about by politicians in Denmark.

Meanwhile, Halima El Abassi, who advises the Danish government as the chairwoman of the Council of Ethnic Minorities, said Muslim women should decide for themselves and not be spoken about as though they do not have agency.

“It should be the girl’s own decision,” she told Al Jazeera. “It’s not the imam’s decision or the minister of foreign affairs’ decision.”

Tesfaye, in recent months, has increasingly targeted subjects regarding Muslim women in Denmark, which culminated in a new campaign launched on November 14 by the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration, aimed at women from minority backgrounds.

The University of The Gambia Students’ Union Judicial Tribunal has upheld the results of the 2020 student union elections.

A political impasse erupted shortly after the elections were held a few weeks ago. It saw the Kemo Fatty-led camp claim the election was marred by fraud.

The JT however on Thursday upheld the election results paving the way for the winner of the election, Ousman Jassey and his team to take office.

Writing on Thursday after the JT’s decision, Jassey who is known among student circles are Gambia’s version of Kenya’s PLO Lumumba said: “Even though it was apparent that the strength of the case of the petitioners can’t move a scale – that we knew from the outset that they had no case to challenge the results of the election held on the 22nd October 2020, but we respected and recognized that it was their constitutional right .

“Aside that , let me express my appreciation to our team of astute Counsels- ( Momodou S. Dem , Bakary Touray , Godson and Ellen Ann) that represented us at the Tribunal. These people are not only outstanding law students with the right legal aptitude and acumen , but they are as well students who are well acquainted with legal issues both in procedure and substance .

“Special appreciation to the UTG Electoral Commission for defending the integrity of the election . Despite all inconveniences and obstacles that frustrated the conduct of the election earlier this year , the Commission has been working extremely very hard to stage the election using all means possible — from online voting plans to online convention etc .

“Lastly , to my contender , Mr. Kemo Fatty and the team , although we received no congratulatory message from them ,but we still look forward to working with them . We are not as divided as our heated politics suggested . We are not enemies but rather opponents . I believe together we can work to meet the challenges of the students .

“The time for politics is over . The stakes are too high . We have a lot more work to do than to imprison ourselves dramatizing the trivialities of the past.”

President Adama Barrow will turn on the light in Kiang following the completion of the region’s electricity project.

Kiang remained one of the only last regions of the country where people rely on solar during the night. Those who cannot afford solar have lived in darkness for decades.

But State House announced on Thursday the president will on Saturday, 28th November switch the light in Kiang, marking the end of an era of darkness and the beginning of socio-economic development..

“For the first time in the history of Kiang, residents will enjoy an uninterrupted supply of electricity,” State House said on its official Facebook page.

The president has been busy travelling around the country in recent weeks flagging off new projects while inaugurating others. He has also been busy inspecting those that are already underway.

A high-power Gambia government ministerial delegation, headed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Gambians Abroad, Hon. Momodou Tangara is in Niamey, Niger attending the 47th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers from 27th to 28th November 2020.

The theme of the Summit is: ‘‘United against Terrorism for Peace and Development’’.

The Summit will discuss pertinent issues of great interest to the Islamic Ummah, including the Gambia-backed Rohingya case at the International Court of Justice. Additionally, the Palestinian cause, the fight against violence, terrorism, and extremism, Islamophobia, religious defamation, among other issues, will also be discussed, a statement by the OIC communication chief Nfally Fadera said.

Other members of the Gambia delegation include officials from OICGambia, the Ministries of Justice, and Foreign Affairs, and the Office of the President.

Lamin Bo Baaji said he reacted by telling Solo Bojang God is good when the soldier walked to him and slapped him as he got taken in for questioning at the NIA.

Baaji was arrested in November 2009 and taken to Mile 2 prison after being accused of having knowledge of the 2006 Ndure Cham coup. He was later taken to the NIA where he was questioned.

“They asked whether MA Bah did not tell me Lang Tombong Tamba was planning a coup,” Baaji who was director of intelligence in the military told the TRRC on Thursday.

“It was Solo Bojang who got up from where he was seated and walked to where I was sitting and slapped me. I said to him, ‘Solo, it’s me you’re slapping?’ I told him, ‘I think you have lost control of yourself, you’re so powerful to the extent you’re slapping me?’ I told him God is good,” he said while recalling his encounter with Solo Bojang who allegedly was a member of the feared Junglers.

Baaji then testified on his conversation with late NIA top official Sukuta Jammeh: “He (Sukuta) said sir ‘you will understand’. I asked him what is there for me to understand. A coup that took place three years ago and they are bringing that today. He told me ‘sir, you have to sacrifice’. I asked him what should I sacrifice for. He said, ‘you should accuse Lang’.

“Yes it’s something that happened. I told them that he was not a part of it. He is in the other world and I am here. This is what he said. He said I should implicate Lang. I asked Sukuta that I worked with him and whether he knew if I was someone who is known for lying. I said I will not do it, I will prefer to die.”

The ministry of health has written to the ministry of interior complaining about the weak enforcement of the regulations devised to curb a spread of coronavirus.

The health ministry in a letter dated November 22 through its permanent secretary Muhammed Lamin Jaiteh is seen telling the permanent secretary of the ministry of interior there is general non-compliance and weak enforcement of the Covid-19 regulations ‘more so the wearing of masks and observance social/physical distancing’.

“The placing of sanitary facilities in public venues is being neglected in most cases and the lack of police action in enforcing the regulations is worrying,” the health minister said. Government spokesperson Ebrima Sankareh confirmed that the letter is authentic, which has circulated online.

The ministry said Covid-19 regulations are still in existence and remain to be relevant given the new waves of the disease in countries ‘around us’.