By: Muhammed Lamin Drammeh
The defeated Gambia Football Federation Presidential candidate, Sadibou Kamaso, has accused the elected President Lamin Kaba Bajo and his team of inducing voters in the run-up to the election held earlier today, August 27th 2022.
Kamaso, who only received twenty-five votes to his name out of seventy-six valid votes, alleged that Team Kaba had gathered the football delegates in a hotel and coaxed them to vote for them.
“Yesterday, most of these delegates were taken into a hotel and there was an audio that leaked where they were being told what to do. They even connived with them to sit together.
We know there were some inducements, some coercion. We all know what happened. There is certain information that we cannot discuss here,” Sadibou said.
Mr. Kamaso told the press that the voting process in the hall was transparent, but questioned the processes leading to the voting.
“We know the incumbent, and we have heard what they told some of them. We will go as a team and sit back to discuss the next move,” he disclosed.
Speaking to the press, the defeated Kamaso back-up his inducement allegation using the invalid vote cast as an example. The vote was considered invalid by the chairman of the electoral committee for writing the name of the club on the voting paper.
“We have seen what they do. Given people the Quran to swear, so if a stakeholder can write the name of the club on a voting paper, it is like they have an agreement.”
According to him, his team will analyse the whole issue and do what is necessary, whether in an appeal form or a petition.
He further alleged that the electoral committee was not independent. He argued that he was barred from entering the place as a delegate for his new team, Young Africans because the chairman of the electoral committee instructed those at the gate. Furthermore, he noted that the chairman wrote letters about the Extraordinary Congress, which is outside his mandate.
Sadibou Kamaso, today, August 27, lost the GFF presidential election to president Lamin Kaba Bajo by 51 votes to 25.
