Abubacarr Tambadou last Friday said ‘personal reasons’ triggered his resignation as attorney general and minister of justice. His exit after three and a half years in the role has divided opinion. He was at the national assembly on Monday for the last time and The Fatu Network brings you what Halifa Sallah said about him after he praised Halifa Sallah.
Halifa Sallah:
When one is singled out, one is also weakened to make comments. In fact it is duty bound to do so. Having lived this long, and being associated with so many things. I have to use every occasion to share lessons. Honourable speaker, justice and mercy are two sides of a coin. And we heard the attorney general. Today attorney general, tomorrow ex-attorney general. And that’s the same for all of us. What legacy do we live behind is really what matters. And essentially, jobs have to be done. And one thing that we must learn is to separate work to be done and the person doing it. When we are here, we must abide by the dictates of the constitution, of conscience, of the national interest. We must separate our individual self from the national cause, the national duty. What is important at this stage is to examine the task that confronted the nation and those who had to carry out the responsibility to ensure that the nation moves forward. Msitakes are unavoidable. Personal conflicts are unavoidable but ultimately we must move on and the nation must move on. And we hope today, as he leaves this forum, he will go knowing that this is Gambian his homeland. And each of us belongs to this nation. And it is our duty to want to build a nation we will want our children and our children’s children to inherit and be proud of. So in this spirit of national unity, we hope this departure will touch the heart of every member of this parliament so that we see a person who has had a job to do and had to face us, and we also had a job to do and had to confront him under certain circumstances so that ultimately we achieve a purpose worth achieving. And as we go our separate ways, we go with the spirit of forgiveness, spirit of real national reconciliation to know that after justice, then there must be peace and we must move forward with reconciliation before there is that peace. Every starting point requires a new state. It will not be nice after a conflict because you must settle all that existed during the period. But after all that, we should have a new beginning. And I hope that he will have a new beginning where he is going and we will continue to search for that new beginning of a Gambia that all of us will belong to and all of us who wish to serve and all of will give our might and heart so that we shape a destiny where there will be no conflict that we see today, no hatred that we may see today but all of us will know that we have a job to do for the nation and the best of all of us. We wish him the best and we hope that he leaves The Gambia knowing that this parliament is striving as much as possible to at least bring that new ethos of building a country for all of us.
