The Standard newspaper yesterday reported that the lawyer for on-trial former intelligence chief Yankuba Badjie had sharply rebuked newscaster Sarjo Barrow for misinterpreting news translated from the quotidian papers into Mandinka in his popular programme on Star FM.

Badjie and eight others are arraigned in connection with the murder of opposition activist Solo Sandeng in April last year.
Yesterday afternoon, the veteran broadcaster strode into Standard offices, Bakau, to refute the comments by Barrister Christopher Mene, describing them as “false information given to the defence lawyer”.

Barrow said: “Let me make it very clear that I have never mentioned that Yankuba was present when the NIA officers were torturing Solo Sandeng. Never! It is not in any of the newspapers that I read since the trial began up to date. I have never seen nor do I read that story. And all my broadcasts are in records and shared on the Internet, WhatsApp and other media. So this is a lie. It is a false information given to the lawyer. I have never mentioned that Yankuba was present when the NIA were torturing Solo Sandeng in any news I carry on Star FM. I don’t know where they get that information from but it’s not true. It is false. It is a misrepresentation of my news,” stated.

Barrow who has been broadcasting for at least three decades, said “there are so many newscasters in Mandinka most of whom are not trained to present news and don’t know what they talk about”. He said Yankuba Badjie’s family may have been misrepresented him “for someone they don’t know but my name is the one singled out. That’s why I have to clear my name, that, it is not true and is unfounded”.

He added: “My news is clear and let me be very clear that nobody can stop me from presenting what is being reported in the newspapers as long as I am still there to do the duty. I am going to present the news as it appears on the papers. Nothing more, nothing less, whether it is harsh, lenient or what, I am going to carry it out in the best language I can present for the public to understand because most of the people rely on the news we are giving so that information has to be clear and precise.”

Source: Standard Newspaper

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, The Gambia decides to issue this Press Release following publications in the Standard, Foroyaa and The Point newspapers quoting the Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) Inspector Foday Conta.

The first point of concern is that PRO Conta is quoted to have said that the problem was between TALLINDING MUSLIMS AND THE AHMADIS. This is a calculated move categorically insinuating that Ahmadi Muslims are not Muslims or he is totally ignorant of what Ahmadi Muslims are. This was simply a situation where Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at had a bereavement and wanted to bury their loved one in a community graveyard in a place where the deceased lived, worked and paid taxes for over three decades. However, a group of Tallinding Markazi youths did not want the deceased to be buried in the graveyard and they were backed by the Tallinding Police.

Brother Kebba Sanneh of Tallinding Sicap, a very sincere Ahmadi Muslim, passed away in the early hours of Saturday 4th May 2017 and was scheduled to be buried at 2pm the same day. At around 10am on the same day a group of young men were dispatched by the Jama’at to go to the graveyard to dig the grave. The young men went to the Kabila Alkalo to get the key and they did and after digging returned the key to the same person.

Around mid-day of the same day, the Jama’at received a telephone call from a watchman at the residence of the deceased to say that there is a problem for he was told by the Imam of the area that burial cannot be done in that graveyard because the deceased Kebba was an Ahmadi.

The Amir dispatched a team of six Jama’at elders to go to the area to investigate what was going on. The team started at the Kabila Imam’s residence where they met the Imam, Alhaji Bakary Ceesay and asked what the issue was surrounding the burial of Brother Kebba Sanneh. The Imam said he got word that Brother Kebba should not be buried in the graveyard but does not know much so he directed the team to the village Alkalo, Ebou Badjie.

The team then went to the village Alkalo and made the same enquiry but he was found to be sick. He referred the team to the ‘Kabila’ Alkalo, Ebrima Badjie.

Upon arrival at the Kabila Alkalo’s place, he was very receptive. When the team narrated what they have been through the Kabila Alkalo responded that a group of young men came to him and said that they needed a paper from him to say that this corpse should not be buried in the cemetery. He told them that he did not have authority to do so, let them go to his boss, the village Alkalo. If he, the Alkalo, writes, appends his signature and affixes the stamp, then he will carry out the orders. According to the Kabila Alkalo they left and never returned. He told the team that the cemetery key was with him and whenever they are ready for the burial let them come for the key and he will give them. The team then left but also made it clear to the Kabila Alkalo that burial will take place as scheduled.

When the team left the Kabila Alkalo’s place they decided to go to the police to seek protection from any eventuality. When the team reached the station, there were about three “Markazi young Muslims’ who were at the station for the same purpose giving their own version of the story. The team narrated what they were there for and the female sergeant who was there immediately responded that the burial will have to wait let them consult their superiors for instructions. The team asked what instructions? There is a corpse to be buried the time is near. In the meantime the female sergeant called one of her bosses who in turn called one of the members of the team to tell us to wait for instructions from above. The officer who called the team member was O.C Superintendent Samba Jawo who instructed that burial should not take place until he gives orders. In the meantime there was commotion in the station each one wanted to talk at the same time and be heard. The team decided to leave and give report to the Amir and then proceed with the burial rites. At that point the police officers there expressed the wish to go to the cemetery to keep peace but lamented that they had no transport. One of the team members used his vehicle to transport them to the cemetery. By the way the regimental members of the police officers who were present and active in this discourse were: 4606, 6868, 6299 (Alieu Sarr), Buba Saho (without number) and a couple of other plain clothes officers.

At 2pm the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at left the Ahmadiyaa Muslim Hospital at Tallinding in a envoy with the corpse to go and bury. Upon arrival at the gate of the cemetery, there were the policemen and a woman at the gate together with few of the ‘Markazi young men. The police had already collected the key from the Kabila Alkalo and refused to open the gate. After the Janaza the Jama’at headed to the gate to go in but were stopped by the police who locked gate telling us to be patient and wait for instructions. That wait took well over an hour with both the corpse and sympathizers under the hot burning sun. As the wait got longer tempers grew hotter and patience almost ran out. At every point the Amir was just admonishing the Jama’at to be calm and exercise patience. This same Tallinding Police Station was behind the first burial issue between the Jama’at and the younger brother of Alkalo of Tallinding in August 2015. They have repeated it again. Is the Tallinding Police doing the same thing to other religious sects’ dead bodies? The Team Member that O.C Jawo spoke with called the Police Commissioner of Administration and explained the situation to him. Commissioner Admin then dispatched Officer King Colley of the Police Intervention Unit (PIU) to come to the scene and correct the situation. Upon King Colley’s arrival and seeing the situation, he asked for the key, open the door and allowed the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at carry on with burial rites in peace. Had the Tallinding Police not collaborated with those Markazi youths but opened the gate just when the corpse arrived then the situation would not have reached the level it did. The Tallinding Police created the commotion and we are holding them responsible for it.

At this point in time we are not dwelling into who is a Muslim or who is not. We have dealt with that in October/November 2014, January 2015 and September of 2015. We are not seeking any stamp of approval from any individual or group to confirm that we are Muslims. It is our fundamental human rights as Muslims to bury our dead bodies in Muslim cemeteries. It is the duty of the police to protect our fundamental rights instead of endangering them, and should be neutral and impartial when intervening in situations like this.

The authorities must watch and avert extremism in this country covertly or overtly for the peace security and stability of the country because extremism has destroyed the fabrics of some countries. This is why the Holy founder of Islam, the Holy Prophet Muhammed (S.A.W.S) asked his followers to take moderate path in their actions.

We pray to Allah Almighty to enable the entire country to cherish and enjoy existing peace and to safeguard the fundamental rights of every citizen so that we live in harmony.” Ameen!

Wasalaam

Signed: Alhaji Ebrima Mbowe

Deputy Amir III

Omar Bojang a staff of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) testified as the second prosecution witness in the trial of nine former NIA personnel.

He attested that he had been serving the Agency for about 25 years, that is, since the first Republic and he recognised the accused persons because most of them were his seniors. He said he was serving as the Director of Technical Service but currently as Director of State Intelligence Service for West Coast Region. He said as Director of Technical Service, he is directly answerable to the Director General of NIA Yankuba Badjie. He averred that it is a normal procedure especially as the Director of Technical Service to wait for his head to leave before he does because he (Yankuba Badjie) may need something in his absence whilst he is at the office.

He testified that one day in April, 2016, he went to the Director General Yankuba Badjie (1st Accused Person) who was sitting under a tree opposite his office and upon arrival within minutes he heard a human crying in a room which is not far from where he and his boss where. He questioned the Director General as to who those people are and thereafter he responded that they are the UDP people who were demonstrating. He said he then asked the Director General whether it is not a risk to allow them to beat up people especially politicians.

He indicated that from the reaction of the Director General he could tell that he was not happy. He affirmed that the Director General requested for one of the UDP militants to be brought to him for interrogation.

“The militant was one Solo Sandeng” he affirmed. He explained that when Solo Sandeng was brought to the Director General, he was in critical life situation that he could not speak to him.

“The Director General ordered for Solo Sandeng to be taken to a fan, probably he fainted” he said. After Solo Sandeng was taken away he said the Director General left and later he followed too.

In Cross examination, PW2 averred that it is a practice in the Agency that he cannot go home unless the Director General left for home which in this case was between the hours of 1 to 2 am. He also attested that Mr. Sandeng fell down before Yankuba Badjie could speak to him.

In addition, PW2 indicated that in the service especially their Agency, when one speaks to his/her senior authority which he does not like, one can understand his/her thinking from his/her reaction.

The accused persons are: Yankuba Badjie, Louis Gomez, former Deputy Director, Saikou Omar Jeng, former director of Operations, Haruna Susso, Yusupha Jammeh, Tamba Masireh, Lamin Darboe and Baboucarr Sallah and Lamin Lang Sanyang. The trial was at the Banjul High Court presided over by Justice Kumba Sillah-Camara.

They are charged with criminal charges ranging from murder, assaults causing actual bodily harm, conspiracy to commit misdemeanour, forgery and making documents without authority contrary to the laws of The Gambia in which they denied all charges at the onset of the trial.

The State was represented by the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DDPP) M.B Abubacarr and 4 others whilst the Defendants were represented by Lawyers U. Achigbue, P. Gomez, E.A. Gomez, Moses Richards, S Kennedy, D. Dago and C.E. Mene.

Source: Foroya Newspaper

The wife of Bunja Nyassi is roaming about to find out why her husband is still detained. She does not have a clue as to why he has been detained for more than 72 hours.

In any democratic society government officials must read the newspapers daily to find out what is said about theirdepartments or their individual persons. This enables them to know what to do to remedy shortcomings.

Foroyaa has been reporting that Bunja Nyassi is detained at the military police in Yundum Barracks. One would have thought that by now a government official would take action to address the problem. Nothing of that sort has happened.

It is therefore important for Foroyaa to start a campaign against the detention of persons without trial for more than 72 hours.

Warrant Officer Class 1 (WOC1) who goes by the name Pa Sanneh, a native of Kartong, was arrested and detained at Yundum Barracks weeks ago, a military source confirms to Foroyaa.

The source added that Sanneh’s arrest, is in connection with the murder of one of their members, Lance Corporal Tumani Jallow.

The military source further revealed that during the Jammeh era, General Saul Badjie hired civilians to do such activities for them. ‘‘These civilians, some of whom were not even Gambians, were fully armed with pistols anywhere they go in the country. They were also answerable directly to former General Badjie. We do not consider them as soldiers because they do not dress in military uniform but in civilian clothes,’’ the source said.

At the time of going to press, the GAF spokesperson Lt. Col. Omar B. Bojang confirmed the arrest and detention of former WOC1 Sanneh. He said that investigations are on and that all persons under their custody are given access to their families.

Source: Foroya Newspaper

The minister of Agriculture has said The Gambia needs to be more innovative and open up to private investors. He made his comments yesterday during the International Agriculture Forum. He said that creating an atmosphere conducive for business means looking at specific tax laws for agriculture and special investment certificates offered by GIEPA, under the Ministry of Trade.

He added that financial institutions and investors need to be comfortable investing in the sector, which he said means understanding the fundamentals of agricultural production and how that can impact the kinds of decisions made.

He continued saying, that they also need these financial institutions to develop targeted products for particular sectors and that farmers, and actors in the agricultural value-chain, also need to understand and appreciate the way financial institutions operate and where their responsibilities lie.

“There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding agriculture; that it is risky and that farmers aren’t credit-worthy,” he said.

Minister Jallow emphasised that financial institutions, as well as farmer/producer organizations and other agricultural organizations are in the best position to identify the financial needs of farmers and other agricultural stakeholders in a climate-smart, agriculture, value-chain system targeted at improving the sector.

He underscored the importance of agriculture to the socio-economic health of The Gambia and said that it should follow that the government needs to invest heavily in the sector.

He encouraged the private sector, especially the financial sector, to recognize the importance of agricultural financing. Hon. Jallow applauded the government for its long term investment strategy in the sector, without the expectation of return on the investment in the short term.

He went on to note that agricultural growth and performance has been fluctuating over the decades partly due to the predominance of subsistence, rain-fed agriculture for food crop production like millet, maize and rice, semi-intensive cash crop production like groundnuts, cotton and horticulture and traditional livestock rearing with little diversification and value addition.

He added that the GNAIP considers the need to transform the agriculture and national resource sectors from subsistence to a more commercial orientation focusing on the smallholders as the main pathway to sustainable development, as a national priority.

“This should have been achieved by capitalizing and accelerating growth in potentially fast growing subsectors such as horticulture and coarse grains and by increasing rice productivity for enhanced food security, income generation and import substitution,” he emphasised.

Source: Point Nespaper#

CORRECTION ON THE PUBLICATION OF DAILY OBSERVER APRIL 10TH EDITION THAT STATES “EX-INTERIOR MINISTER HAS NO CONNECTION IN THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY THE FORMER REGIME”

The office of the inspector General of Police hereby refer you to an article published on the Daily Observer on the 10th April 2017 edition, which wrongly quoted the Crime Management Coordinator (CMC) in a joint press conference organized by the State House, GPF and GAF Press and Public Relations Offices.

According to the headline of the article, it states that “Ex-interior Minister, Ousman Sonko have no connection in the atrocities committed during the former regime”.

This statement which wrongly quoted the CMC in the headline brought a confusion among the readers of the newspaper and gave a different meaning to the whole statement of the CMC, even though it was clearly said in the inside story.

The office of the Inspector General of Police takes this opportunity to clarify to the general public the question posed to the CMC and what his reply was. The question was that “whether the former Interior Minister was the one in command and control of the Junglars”? And the answer from the CMC was that “there was no evidence yet to established that the former Interior Minister was the one in command and control of the Janglers, however, that those not mean he is not subjected to any investigation”

Furthermore, the Office of the Inspector General of Police warns the general public especially the media fraternity to avoid quoting people wrongly, that whatever is not clear to should be found out until doubts are cleared. That the Gambia Police Force has an open-door policy to all Gambians especially the media who we considered as great partners in national development.

Source: Point Newspaper

The opposition Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC) has not still legally challenged last month’s National Assembly election results, but the party leader Mamma Kandeh, has renewed the party’s allegations of malpractices during the polls. Speaking at a recent rally in his home constituency Jimara, Kandeh alleged that some IEC staff were spotted filling UDP ballots with marbles at some polling stations.
“We have proof of that because we confiscated some marbles from some of their polling staff,” the GDC leader alleged.

Kandeh said his party agents detected these malpractices but due to their lack of technical knowhow on the issue, they couldn’t act on the spot.
The GDC leader alleged that, while the UDP and its party leader might be celebrating their victory but they cannot fail to know that the election was rigged in their favour.

“The way and manner the election was held was not fair neither was it transparent. Most of the malpractices we detected unfortunately were on the sides of the IEC polling agents, because the rigging was well planned,” he said.

He alleged that the GDC would have won 17 seats in the National Assembly election, but everything was manipulated in favour of the UDP. “We knew very well that the UDP victory was pre-destined well before the election and it is not a surprise to us,” he said.

He added: “I will take the last polling station to be counted in Sandu as an example, where they took NRP’s 73 votes and added them to UDP’s 11 votes and that was repeated in many places,” Kandeh alleged.
He said if that was not the case, GDC would have won in Sandu with over 46 votes. “We are aware of all these, but we will not cause any problem; all we will do is to talk about it for the whole world to know.”
On the issue of tribalism, the GDC leader said no tribe in the country can stand alone, and whosoever is trying to entertain tribalism will never succeed. “Since from the beginning of Gambia’s history all we know as Gambians is unity and no individual can change that,” Kandeh said.

He called on Gambians to always put the country first, before any individual interest.
The GDC leader also took time to criticise the new government, saying “I told Gambians well before the presidential election that if they vote for either the Coalition or Yahya Jammeh, they will regret it but they never listened. Yahya Jammeh is gone but nothing has changed.”

Source: Standard Newspaper

he authorities at the Gambia Ferry Services have confirmed that a new ferry has been acquired and will be coming to Banjul shortly.

A source who spoke to The Standard disclosed that the new ferry is similar to Kanilai but twice larger and more spacious. ”This will enormously ease traffic and minimize delays,” our source said confidently.

Meanwhile another official of the Ferries Services has dismissed recent rumours of fatal stampede at one of the landings as ‘fake news”.

Source: Standard Newspaper

The Standard has learned that the former Solicitor General and Legal Secretary at the Attorney General’s Chambers and Ministry of Justice, Cherno Marena has bounced back as the Solicitor General and Legal Secretary of the position he held for years before he was dismissed sometime last year.

Source: Standard Newspaper

By Lamin Sanyang

Alieu Secka, Chief Executive Officer CEO of The Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry GCCI has called on the new government of President Adama Barrow to support the indigenous business owners in the country.

Talking to The Fatu Network at his office in Bijilo, CEO Secka tasked the new government to learn lessons from the first republic to set up a mechanism to support indigenous businesses many of which are mainly micros and small enterprises.

“The Gambia Commercial and Development Bank was set up during the first republic particularly to support the businesses,” Alieu Secka disclosed.

Secka said many lessons were learned from that experience by creating the necessary support for several local businesses to compete in the business sector. He expressed his hope in the new government to learn lessons from the past. He further called on the government to engage the foreign investors to partner with local businesses, saying it would be a winning situation to both parties.

“One of the challenges faced by the indigenous businesses is the lack of access to finances to expand their businesses,” he asserted.

He explained how they have been engaging the government in the past and present to actively look into this matter to provide affordable finances to expand their businesses, saying foreign businesses are welcome but they also want to see the local businesses improve.

Chief Executive Officer Secka said working with the former government of President Jammeh was very difficult but they tried to forge constructive relation in the public.

“The last government was particularly difficult in the sense that they were not totally predictable in some areas,” he asserted.

Secka expressed hope in the new government to create the enabling environment and level playing field for the public and private sector which he said will encourage foreign investors who are more than willing to invest in the country. He said already some investors have started making inquiries. He expressed optimism in the business investments in the country.

Talking about the achievements made, he made mention of training packages, issuing certificates of origin and administered the inter state route which is sub-regional protocol among others. He said many countries within the subregion come to collect their goods at the country’s sea port on duty free. He also hailed the annual trade fair which was attended by almost all the countries in the subregion.

“The Gambia has a free enterprise economy in that case we welcome everybody provided the playing field is level.

Meanwhile, he encouraged free enterprise economy, calling on the government to regularize the energy sector to boost the country’s agricultural produce particularly fruits and vegetables as industries and factories cannot develop without energy.