By Momodou Justice Darboe

Human rights activists and civil society organisations in the country are deeply concerned about the continued remand on bail of some Gambian nationals arrested in connection with a botched protest .

The 15 Gambians were arrested on May 10 in Senegambia as they assembled there to protest moves to amend the three-year agreement reached by coalition partners in 2016 for Mr Adama Barrow to oversee a transitional program.

The 15 people among them eight women have been charged with various offences and granted bail but have been reporting to police on daily basis, which activists say, is unlawful and amounts to a violation of their human rights.

Speaking at a media briefing held at TANGO on Monday to denounce the treatment that was meted out and continue to be to the 15 Gambian nationals, Salieu Taal, a legal luminary and a human rights lawyer, did not only express his willingness to represent the accused in any competent court of law but that their continued reporting to the police is unacceptable.

“Look at them… They are all Gambians and very peaceful. I have no reason to believe that these people can jeopardise the peace and tranquility of the country, considering their composition,” he emphasised.

He added: “These people got their rights violated when they were told they can only get a permit to demonstrate only after 72 hours of application for permit. There is no law here that says you can get a permit to protest only after 72 hours of applying for it. I am here to give them solidarity and I’m willing to give them legal support if the need arises.”

Also addressing the press, Mr Baboucarr Nyang of The Gambia We Want group, laments that The Gambia is sliding back into the dark days of human rights violations and abuses. He pointed out that his group will join forces with like-minded persons and groups to build on the country’s democratic gains.

“We want to say never again to impunity,illegal arrests ,detention and other forms of human rights violations,” emphasised. He accused the government of double standards.

Isatou Sisokho of Three Years Jotna maintained that the raison de’tre of the May 10 assembly was to try to heap pressure on the country’s coalition partners to abandon their attempt of amending the coalition agreement.

By Lamin Njie

The Office of the President on Tuesday said the Gambia government has walked out of plans for The Gambia to host the 2019 Organisation of Islamic Conference summit.

The Gambia government came under fire earlier this month after it emerged that the country will no longer go ahead to host the OIC summit. The high level summit which will now be hosted by Saudi Arabia is billed for November, 2019.

On Tuesday, State House announced in a statement that the government has decided to ‘defer the hosting of the 2019 Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Summit in The Gambia to the year 2022.’

“The decision followed a series of high-level consultations held with other African countries on the limited time available to have the needed infrastructure for the successful hosting of the 2019 OIC Summit,” the statement signed by President Barrow’s press secretary Amie Bojang Sissoho said.

It added: “The Government, in preparation for the summit, established the National O.I.C. Secretariat in February 2018 to oversee the successful organization and hosting of the Summit.

“The Secretariat has also been given the mandate to mobilize resources required to enable The Gambia to host the Summit successfully.  Already, it has secured funding for the following projects, the implementation of which will start soon; ‘construction of a Dual Carriageway from Yundum via Bertil Harding Highway to the Sting Corner, construction of a 400-room, 5 Star Hotel and 60 Luxury Suites,cconstruction of VVIP Lounge at the Banjul International Airport, enhanced Water Production, Transmission and Distribution, [and] enhanced Power Transmission and Distribution Network.

“Given these huge tasks against the limited time factor, it became apparent that the country’s ability to host the summit this year seems distant. The Government thus, opted to seek the deferment of its hosting of the Summit to the year 2022, when the next OIC Summit is scheduled to take place.”

By Lamin Njie

The Gambia Armed Forces said Tuesday the soldier who shot Ismaila Tamba was trying to shoot out the tyres of the vehicle of the Kanilai native.

Mr Tamba was shot at a military checkpoint in Kanilai on Sunday in a lethal force encounter that has stunned the nation.

On Tuesday, the Gambian army issued a statement saying Tamba drove through a military checkpoint without stopping.

“The driver (Tamba) was challenged by the soldier on sentry duty to stop the vehicle and return back to the check point for the routine search procedure as required. However, the driver failed to do so and attempted to drive away. In an apparent attempt to disable the tyre of the vehicle, the soldier on sentry duty shot at the vehicle thereby resulting to the injury of the driver on his back,” the army said in a statement signed by its deputy spokesperson Malick Sanyang.

“The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of the Gambia Armed Forces Lieutenant General Masanneh N Kinteh deeply regrets the incident and commiserates with the injured driver and his family. Meanwhile, the CDS has immediately ordered an inquiry into the circumstances that led to the unfortunate incident.

“The Gambia Armed Forces hereby reassures the general public to exercise restraint while investigations are being carried out.”

By Lamin Njie

Former president Yahya Jammeh on Monday entreated the people of Kanilai to remain calm over the shooting of Ismaila Tamba of the village.

Mr Tamba was shot Sunday evening at a military checkpoint in Kanilai, making him the second victim in two years of lethal force encounters between the people of the village and security forces.

Opposition APRC officials on Monday visited Kanilai and held a meeting with the people of the village.

The spokesperson of the party Musa Amul Nyassi told The Fatu Network former president Jammeh participated in the meeting from his base in Equatorial Guinea.

Nyassi said: “Yes I think you may have heard the audio and what the conversation was, you will know here is a man that is still advocating for peace and stability of the country. He has the country at heart.

“This is what he was telling his people; ‘that it has happened again for the second time in Kanilai but Allah knows best why this is happening. So all we have to do was to remain law abiding, let’s allow the la to take its course, nobody should take the law into his own hands. The party has a leadership, your MP is there they will pursue things, remain calm and follow the instructions of the elders and the current party leader’.”

By Momodou Justice Darboe

A prominent Gambian Islamic cleric has advised religious leaders of the country to desist from associating with politicians, saying this will help them maintain their dignity and independence as watchdogs of the society.

Speaking to journalist Ebrima Manneh of Kora FM on Saturday, Ba Kawsu Fofana advised the custodians of religion to be wary of political leaders.

“The larger society is not treating our scholars as expected because of our dealings with the former government. We are held in contempt and low esteem because we have kowtowed and were subservient to the former administration. This has indeed eroded public confidence in our authority,” he rued.

According to the top cleric, a line should be drawn between religion and politics.

“Politicians come and go but the religion stays. We have a role to play for the betterment of the society but let us please desist from politics to save our battered image. The former leader has debased us and this is why people are treating us with scorn and disdain. Not only that but it is threatening to erode public confidence in us,” he indicated.

Ba-Kawsu was the incendiary Imam of Sanchaba Sulay Jobe Fofana Kunda Mosque. His fiery sermons and public preachings including his direct attacks on former president Yahya Jammeh landed him in a number of troubles. He fled to Senegal in June 2015 following his release from detention. He is now the head of the village of Sobeya Kunda in Casamance.

By Lamin Njie

A top adviser to President Adama Barrow has dismissed reports he has been sacked from his post.

Reports last week emerged that President Barrow has sacked his on adviser on religious matters, Dembo Bojang.

Speaking to The Point on Sunday, Mr Bojang said the reports were ‘mere rumours,’ saying “I have neither resigned nor removed.”

“The rumours are false,” he added.

President Barrow has about six senior private advisers including Mr Bojang.

By Lamin Njie

GMC leader Mai Ahmad Fatty has responded to Almami Taal’s savage comments against his party, saying the UDP spokesperson knows nothing about politics.

Almami Taal last month ruffled GMC feathers during an interview in which he said GMC is a one-party. GMC’s executive lashed back describing his comments as ‘impudent’ and demanded that he apologise to the party.

On Sunday, the leader of the red party commented on the issue for the first time, saying Mr Taal was doing a ‘great’ disservice to UDP.

Mr Fatty told The Fatu Network in an exclusive interview: “Almami Taal is a political ignoramus. He knows nothing about politics and he’s doing a great disservice to UDP because UDP is really losing its allies. I don’t think he knows how to do his job. Because the spokesperson of a party, when you open your mouth, you’re speaking on the authority of the leadership.

“I do not believe that Honourable Ousainou Darboe or Aji Yam Secka will go around and say GMC is a one-man party, is nothing, the Mai Fatty party. Because Aji Yam Secka and Honourable Ousainou Darboe know the history of our relationship with UDP and they know what GMC has been doing with UDP.

“You have to put it in context. The executive issued a statement and I stand behind that statement. My personal opinion is different but this is a collective matter. The context in which it was analysed is this: GMC always considers UDP as an ally, although we belong to different political parties.

“We worked together on common issues in the past. That is to say from 2009 all the way down to 2016, we worked on common issues together. When they had a blockade in Fass, we were the first political party to send a swarm of young people to support them there which we did at our cost. We’ve also worked with them within GOFER, Gambia Opposition for Electoral Reforms. We also worked within the coalition… This was the coalition we did, GMC, PPP and UDP when we had those series of campaigns.

“We also supported in alliance with United Democratic party in the 2011 elections which I came and supported the candidature of Honourable Ousainou Darboe and campaigned for him across the country. GMC used its human and financial resources in that campaign. And there is very close working relationship between these two parties.

“So we do not expect that unprovoked, without any reason, any foundation, that a party that has a very strong political working relationship with you, you could just go down and deride them contemptuously like that. We were a bit taken aback because we though this is a party that we establish grounds for working relationship. If there are issues, we expected that… There are channels of communication that can be used between the two parties. That is one.

“Secondly, to say GMC is a one-man party expresses the highest political ignorance of the maker of that statement who by the way has been unknown in Gambian political circles before barely a year ago. When we were fighting Yahya Jammeh, we were being locked up. We were being driven and we were kicked into exile. We were spending hundreds of thousands of our personal fortune to free this country.

“When we were going through difficulties, these were people who were afraid. They could not even utter a single word. All of a sudden today, through our efforts, supported by the Gambian people, they’re coming around to deride our efforts. The efforts that we have made.

“The third part is, GMC is not a one-man political party. We were the first political party to organise a proper congress in 2017 at the Independence Stadium. Anybody knows that the from the 30^th to the 31^st of December 2017, it was GMC’s turn. We turned the area red. We had the entire Friendship Hostel full with GMC representatives. We rented the entire building.

“We had delegates from all over the country, from every ward, every constituency in this country. We were there for two days. And these two days, we went through our programmes, we went through our constitution and we elect[ed] and executive of which I’m the leader. So GMC went through a congress, a congress of grassroots. How can you come around and say it’s a one-man party. You know about that congress. It was covered by the media.

“It wasn’t just Mai Fatty sitting there with a group of six, seven people. We had representatives from all over the country. Two days intensive which culminated in an election. For the first time, a political party used paper ballot. And when we had this election it was transparent. It was streamed live on Facebook, Eye Africa TV, GRTS… Now, where was Almami Taal when all these things took place?”

Four men on Friday started 10 years jail terms each for the manslaughter of a Gambian man during a robbery in the United Kingdom

Tairu Jallow, 29, was repeatedly stabbed at his home in Kettering, Northamptonshire, on 14 January 2018.

Ngange Sowe, 30, Babacarr Sylva, 32, and Clever Makande and Kausu Ceesay, both 24, then left him to die, Northampton Crown Court heard.

Speaking outside court, the victim’s sister-in-law Yarel Jallow called his death “soul-destroying” for his family, the BCC reported on Friday.

“When the family heard that he had died was when a hole in our hearts formed,” she said.

“To think he died in such a painful way, and scared for his life and his wife’s life makes us feel sick.”

‘Violent raid’

Mr Jallow begged in two languages not to be attacked, the court heard, but was stabbed 13 times, probably with more than one knife, according to the BBC.

Prosecutor Karim Khalil had previously told the court of the “carefully planned and violent raid”, which likely involved others.

Some of the gang went through the front door while others broke in through the rear of the house in Havelock Street, he said.

Police said Mr Jallow was targeted by the gang “as part of their illegal drug dealing activities”.

Makande, Sowe, and Ceesay, all from Birmingham, and Sylva, from Nottingham, were originally charged with murder.

Sylva, a former Grenadier Guard, was also sentenced to seven months for possession of cannabis, and Ceesay to three months for possession of a lock knife. Both sentences will run consecutively. (BBC)

By Lamin Njie

A Gambian man sustained injuries after two soldiers opened fire at him during a shooting which left at least one other person dead.

Times of Malta reported on Saturday that two Maltese soldiers have been arrested for the murder of Ivorian national Lasana Cisse. The duo allegedly shot the father-of-three and two others, a 28-year-old Gambian, Mohamed, and 27-year-old Guinean, Ibrahim, the paper said. The incident happened last month in the town of Birzebbugga.

Ibrahim and Mohamed were walking back home after watching a football match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.

The country’s prime minister Joseph Muscat on Sunday said the only thing that the three men were shot at was because they were black.

By Lamin Njie

The mother of GDC leader Mamma Kandeh has died. Mada Sowe who was fondly called Merr Sowe died on Sunday in Brusubi. She was 91.

GDC national youth president MC Cham Jnr confirmed the death on Facebook, saying Merr Sowe died Sunday morning.

“The sad news is extended to all Gambians in and outside the country especially GDC supporters, members, militants and sympathizers,” Cham added.

Messages of condolence and prayer have since started to pour in for the leader of one of the biggest opposition political parties in the country. Foday Chorr said on Facebook: “My condolence to Hon. Kandeh and family. May her soul rest in peace.”

Babucarr Jallow said: “My condolence to Hon. Mama Kande and the family for the great loss. May Allah grant the mother Janna firdawsi. Ameen.”

Madi Jobarteh sending his condolence through MC Cham Jnr said: “May the gentle soul of his beloved mother Rest In Peace. Amen. Please extend my heartfelt condolences to Hon Mama Kandeh and his family and party members.”

By Omar P. Jallow

Malick Fama Foundation Friday donated food items and bottles of drinking water to inmates of the State Central Prisons in Banjul.

The donated items include 25 bags of rice, 25 bags of sugar, five buckets of butter, 10 cartons of milk powder, five 20l gallons of cooking oil, five packets of tea bag and bottles of drinking water.

Speaking at a ceremony held at the Mile Two prison on Friday to present the donated items, Secretary General of Malick Fama Foundation, Mr Omar Badjie, highlighted that the gesture was part of his foundation’s contribution to the improvement of the welfare of the needy during Ramadan.

“The Malick Fama Foundation is set up to support the less privileged and the needy in society,” he added.

Former Chief of Defence Staff also adviser to Malick Fama Foundation, Mr. Lang Tombong Tamba, thanked Capt. Abdoulie Jobe and wife Ndey Busso of the foundation, for what he called a noble move in reaching out to those in prisons. ” I believe that prisons are places for correction and I want people to understand that inmates need to be cared for and motivated. Going to jail does not mean someone is bad,” he stated.

Receiving the items on behalf of the beneficiaries, Mr Lamin Sanneh,Director of Administration of Prisons Service, said the items would go a long way in supporting the prisons feeding programme.

“It is not easy to feed inmates. They are humans and need balanced diet. Inmates are not bad people. We are trying to use here [prisons] to rehabilitate and transform the inmates to become productive in society by training them in different skills,” he posited.

A Zimbabwean fisherman has been killed by a crocodile that reportedly devoured his penis.

Paul Nyamhanza, 27, of Hopley in Harare, was killed near Beatrice in Mashonaland, some 34 miles (54 km) southwest of the capital.

He was casting nets for fish with his younger brother Jeremiah, 19, at the Elladale Farm Dam when the reptile attacked him, Bulawayo 24 reported on Thursday.

When Zimparks rangers recovered his body later they found his penis had been bitten off.

Mashonaland East provincial police spokesperson Inspector Tendai Mwanza confirmed the grisly circumstances of Mr Nyamhanza’s death.

‘I confirm the death of a man from Hopley in Harare, who was attacked by a crocodile at a dam in Beatrice,’ he said.

‘The deceased was in the company of another adult man casting their fishing nets when he was attacked by the reptile.’

Inspector Mwanza warned fishermen and others to stay away from waters where crocodiles are known to lurk. (DailyMail)

The ECOWAS Task Force on the region’s single currency would meet in June to give the assessment on the studies of the currency, President of the commission, Mr Jean-Claude Brou, has said.

Brou said this while presenting the Community Work Programme at the ongoing ordinary session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja on Friday.

The commission’s president said that stakeholders in the region’s economic and finance sectors, including the central banks and ministers of finance, had been deliberating on the single currency.

“The single currency is a topic that is very important because it completes the free movement of persons for a single market and if there is a single currency, one can carry out trade and there is a need for harmonisation.

“Deliberations are being carried out with the central banks and the ministers of finance in the region and some key issues are being discussed.

“Issues such as the convergence criteria, the best exchange regime to adopt with challenges and costs involved so as to give the best conditions for the community.

“The studies that are being carried out would be completed by next month so that we can have the proposals and make progress.”

Brou said that the meeting would determine the possibility of achieving the single currency by 2020 set by the Heads of State.

“It will be on the basis of the results of all the studies on the assessment that is currently being done that we will see where we stand exactly but the objectives have been set by the Heads of State,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Authority of Heads of State and Government had set aside 2020 for West African countries to achieve the single currency which would promote economic integration.

The commission’s president, while presenting the community report to the parliament in November 2018, said that many member states had yet to meet the macroeconomic convergence criteria required for a monetary union.

The three primary criteria that are being used are a budget deficit of not more than three per cent; average annual inflation of less than 10 per cent with a long term goal of not more than five per cent by 2019; and gross reserves that can finance at least three months of imports.

The three secondary convergence criteria that have been adopted by ECOWAS are public debt/Gross Domestic Product of not more than 70 per cent; central bank financing of the budget deficit should not be more than 10 per cent of previous year’s tax revenue; and nominal exchange rate variation of plus or minus 10 per cent. (Vanguard)

By Press Association

Consuming fruit juices is just as bad for your health and likely to lead to an early death as drinking cola or lemonade, research suggests.

A new study found an increased risk of dying early from any cause for people who consumed a lot of sugary drinks.

US researchers compared, for the first time, 100 percent fruit juices with sugar-sweetened beverages such as cola and lemonade.

They found very similar associations for both fruit juices and sugary drinks with an increased risk of dying early, though they said more research was needed.

An expert described the study as important but said there was no risk from a single 150ml glass of fruit juice per day.

The new research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), analyzed data from 13,440 people. Their intake of sugary drinks and 100 percent fruit juices was recorded via a questionnaire on how often they consumed the drinks.

During an average follow-up of six years, there were 1,000 deaths from any cause and 168 deaths from coronary heart disease.

Typically, people in the study got 8.4 percent of their calorie intake each day from sugar-sweetened drinks and 4 percent from 100 percent fruit juice.

People were considered to have a high intake of these drinks if 10 percent or more of energy intake came from these drinks compared with those with a low intake (less than 5 percent).

After factors such as obesity were taken into account, those with the highest intake had an 11 percent increased risk of dying from any cause for every extra 12oz of sugar-sweetened drink consumed, and a 24 percent increased risk for every extra 12oz of fruit juice consumed.

The researchers, including from Emory University in Atlanta and Cornell University in New York, said: ‘These results suggest higher consumption of sugary beverages, including fruit juice, is associated with increased mortality.

‘The nutrient content of 100 percent fruit juices and SSBs (sugar-sweetened beverages) is very similar.

‘While 100 percent fruit juices contain some vitamins and phytonutrients that are missing from most SSBs, the predominant ingredients in both are sugar and water.

‘Although the sugar in SSBs is added during processing and the sugar in 100 percent fruit juice occurs naturally, the specific sugars they provide for the body to process are essentially the same, and the biochemical response when metabolized is the same.’

The authors suggested a few possible reasons for the increased risk of dying from consumption of sugary drinks.

Obesity is obviously the main factor, they said, but once that is taken into account, research suggests that sugary drinks increase insulin resistance.

Other factors may be that consuming fructose alters blood lipid levels, markers of inflammation and blood pressure, while high glucose consumption has been associated with insulin resistance and diabetes.

Dr Gunter Kuhnle, associate professor in nutrition and health at the University of Reading, said: ‘This is a very important study, especially as fruit juices are often seen as a ‘healthy’ alternative to sugar-sweetened beverages, even though they often contain much more sugar (especially smoothies).

‘Fruit juices can provide vitamins and even some fiber, but there is little health benefit beyond this: the amount of phytochemical found in juices is too low to have any further beneficial effect, and there is no beneficial health effect from so-called antioxidants.

‘If the association is shown to be causal (which we don’t know yet), this would have a number of implications: first of all, it would suggest that it does not matter whether sugary drinks are lemonades or fruit juices.

‘This is important, as fruit juices and smoothies are not commonly perceived as sugary drinks. Secondly, it would suggest purported health benefits of fruit juices are not sufficient to counteract their sugar content.

‘Fruit juices are a poor replacement for actual fruit consumption, in particular as they can be much more easily over-consumed.

‘Indeed, a 150ml glass of orange juice is made from about two oranges – but it takes much longer to eat two oranges than to drink the juice.

‘In the UK, the general recommendation is that a 150ml glass of fruit juice can provide one of the five-a-day, but not more.

‘This is less than half of the amount found in this study to result in a modest increase in mortality, so there is no suggestion from this study that one glass a day is problematic.’

By Momodou Justice Darboe

The Director General of the Gambia Tourism Board has denied media reports that he exonerated EJ Investments from encroaching on the Tourism Development Area.

EJ Investments was recently in the news after GTBoard claimed the real estate agency had encroached on the Tourism Development Area in Sanyang and Tujereng. GTBoard last month said in a statement that real estate agencies like EJ Investment, S&J Properties and Darboe Jula were selling landed properties in the Tourism Development Area, notably Tanji, Batokunku, Tujereng, Kartong and Sanyang. The tourism regulation body warned that anyone who buys land in the TDA is doing so at his or her own risk.

On May 2, EJ Investments called a press conference where it slammed GTBoard for claiming the company was selling land in the Tourism Development Area.

On Wednesday, The Standard newspaper reported that the director general of the Gambia Tourism Board confirmed to the paper that EJ Investments’ estate in Sanyang does not lie within Tourism Development Area.

But speaking in a press conference on Friday in Kololi, Abdoulie Hydara said reports that he had confirmed that EJ Investments has not encroached on the TDA in Sanyang were incorrect.

“If we give out information in an attempt to be very open and transparent and knowing very well that the media forms a critical component of our development agenda, we would be very happy to see you quoting us correctly. It is incorrect to quote that the director general of the Gambia Tourism Board has confirmed that EJ Investments has not encroached in Sanyang. I have never said that,” Hydara said.

By Lamin Njie

Dou Sanno has said that former vice president Ousainou Darboe and a number of political prisoners had their imprisonment scrapped thanks to President Adama Barrow.

President Barrow and Darboe have bandied words in the past over who was responsible for his release from prison.

President Barrow during meeting with his supporters at State House last month said he was the one who released a number of political prisoners including Darboe from Mile Two in 2017. Darboe disagreed with him in an interview with Paradise TV, saying it was Gambians who were behind his release from prison.

But speaking to Star FM in an exclusive interview, Dou Sanno endorsed President Barrow’s comment saying “it’s by the grace of President Barrow that all of them came out.”

“If there is anyone to commend, President Barrow is the one. Then you can commend Gambians because it was Gambians who united and brought President Barrow to where he is,” the deputy political adviser to the president said.

“And the position president Barrow is occupying, it’s God that gave it to him and when God gave it to him, President Yahya Jammeh acknowledged it because he called him congratulating him and conceding defeat.”