By Lamin Njie
President Adama Barrow was pressured into feigning excuses so that he can stay on as president, Three Years Jotna’s Yankuba Darbo has said.
President Barrow on Tuesday said, ‘I cannot accord the coalition agreement preference over the constitution,’ as he used his New Year speech to address calls for him to resign.
Yankuba Darbo reacted to Mr Barrow’s comments today saying the president has once again attempted to “feign excuses for justifications with the hope of cajoling the Gambian populace into embracing his apostasy of his Coalition 2016 MOU agreement with the Gambian opposition party supporters, which he reaffirmed in his 2016 political manifesto and campaign pledges to the Gambian people – to serve a 3 years transitional government.”
“It suffices to state that the President was simply pressured to make such response in the wake of recent popular protests headed by 3 years Jotna in The Gambia and a petition served on him requesting for his response,” Darbo, a lawyer, said.
He continued: “If anything it proves the sceptics wrong that pressure in the form of public protest does not work. In fact, it proves that with more sustained pressure, Barrow will have no choice but to yield to the power of his people. Thus more pressure is still needed to derail Adama Barrow from his one man mission to crash our 2016 Coalition success story for the New Gambia.
“The President’s address came on the heels of the announcement of the establishment of his newly formed political party named the National Peoples Party (NPP), which means he is not only seeking to extend his transition from 3 to 5 years, but to perpetuate his presidency for as long as he can, relying on the treachery of incumbency.
“Thus the excuse given by President Barrow in his address to the nation is disingenuous, for he claimed that he does not want to resign because the Coalition was spurned out of the sole desire to dislodge dictatorship and he had sworn to the constitution.”
