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 30th to the 31st 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?”
