Talented journalist Mustapha K Darboe has resigned his role as vice president of the Gambia Press Union.
Mr Darboe had been the union’s vice president since September 2018. He resigned on Monday after his role at the union was thrown into controversy.
A group of journalists had insisted Mr Darboe was no longer qualified to serve in an executive role in the union since he was now a media chief. He is the man behind Malagen, an online publication.
Mr Darboe told The Fatu Network on Monday resigning was the right thing to do.
He said: “Not just because some of our members have raised concerns about my status but the reality is that even though there are some who disagreed with my position, I think the intent of that clause in the GPU constitution which says someone who owns a media house is not supposed be eligible, I think the intent of that is to avoid a situation like my case – even though it was two years down the line after being vice president is when I established a news website which you could call a media house even though I have not employed anyone.
“It’s also in the interest of unity. There are some factions whoa s insignificant as you can think they are but they are members of the union and where you have instances of dispute, of course as a leader you must also be responsible enough to see a reasonable course of action and take that.
“It’s been an amazing experience for me. If anything I think the most important thing is I have benefitted a lot in terms of experience, supervising administrative issues, dealing with people at the secretariat.”
