By Lamin Njie
Former vice president Fatoumatta Jallow Tambajang has said that she refused to accept a job with the United Nations because it was a ‘demotion’.
The country’s former Number Two stated this in an exclusive interview with The Fatu Network.
Mrs Jallow Tambajang was appointed The Gambia’s vice president in February 2017 under controversial circumstances. She later could only oversee the office after a law barred her due to her age. That law was later scrapped to allow her to be properly installed.
But she was sacked from the post in June as part of a major cabinet reshuffle only to be offered another job, the job of ambassador to the United Nations.
And commenting on her decision to decline the offer for the first time, Mrs Jallow Tambajang said: “I turned it down because I feel I needed time to think about it. And I feel that I had worked with the United Nations but the most important reason is the fact that I had worked with the United Nations and my level was beyond ambassador.
“And we know we have to be realistic… Not because I don’t feel… I am not a person that has a sense of entitlement, ‘this is for me and nobody else’. No. I was beyond an ambassador. I cannot go back to the UN being an ambassador at the UN mission at the ambassador level. So for me, that was a demotion.”
The former vice president in the wide ranging interview also dismissed claims she was desperate to obtain a job with the Barrow government
“I have never had the intention to be foreign minister. His Excellency never offered me the position. I never asked him for the position. And I never had any ambition to be anywhere,” she said
According to her, her focus the time President Barrow came to power was for him to have a good cabinet.
“I supported him in the process. He consulted all the political leaders. He offered positions to all the political leaders. The political leaders are more important than me. For me it is not the position that matters, if it is the position that matters I would have gone back to the UN or gone back to another system to work because I have what it requires. I’m not complete as a human being because we all learn from the cradle to the grave but I would have gone for better jobs,” she said.
