UDP leader Ousainou Darboe has revealed UDP officials lost their appointments as ministers because they refused to endorse President Barrow as UDP’s presidential candidate.
Darboe and two UDP stalwarts in Amadou Sanneh and Lamin Dibba were sensationally fired by President Barrow last year. It effectively ended UDP’s membership of the coalition government.
On For The People By The People show on Sunday, UDP leader Darboe in dealing with a question that has to do with both UDP and Barrow living the same political lifestyle in terms of firing perceived fifth columnists said: “I think the situations (their sacking and UDP sacking its MPs) are incomparable, they’re absolutely incomparable.
“We went into government because the government was elected on a coalition platform of which we were a partner. We were part of that coalition, we were not in fact an insignificant partner in that coalition.
“We really deserved our appointments as ministers and we lost our appointments not because we were against the government of The Gambia. We lost our position not because we were doing things against the government of The Gambia, we lost our positions because Barrow wanted UDP to endorse him as the presidential candidate which we refused to do.
“Now contrary to what happened to these MPs, these MPs were elected on a UDP platform and when they got elected on UDP platform, they started conspiring with Barrow to undermine UDP and we felt that we cannot keep such people in the party. We cannot have divided loyalty.”
Darboe’s side of the story is different from President Barrow’s, with the Gambian leader saying they were sacked because they were undermining his government.
