By Lamin Njie, editor-in-chief
People’s Progessive Party’s national congress controversially churned out Kebba Jallow as the new leader of the party – a congress that will be remembered for delegates hauling insults at each other and riot police called.
Ninety-two delegates gave Jallow the nod by raising their hand in an open ballot at PPP’s congress in Brikama-ba on Saturday. His abnormal victory came amid his opponent Touma Njai and her delegate supporters storming out of the meeting.
What exactly happened?
PPP’s congress was always bound to run into troube; the first visible sign of trouble came in the morning when a party chairman protested the non-inclusion of his hand-picked delegates on a list of delegates voting.
Kebba Bah, who says he is the party’s chairman for CRR North told The Fatu Netwotk: ““They want to put labaj (fraud) in the politics of the party.
“We have seen the time of Papa Njie which resulted in the party going to court. On this occasion, the party is facing that same fate. Because Demba said it is OJ who told him that delegates who support Touma Njai should be removed from the list.
“We will not accept it. If my people do not vote, no one will vote. No one will vote and it’s our lives that we have put forward and we’re ready for them to take us (arrest us).”
OJ told The Fatu Network he never spoke with anyone about anything, even delegates who travelled from Serrekunda. Riot police were drafted in as soon as the few regular and un-armed security officers on the ground sensed uncertainty.
Still, PPP’s congress stared at greater trouble when Touma Njai took to the mic early on to make a proposal for delegates to decide if they want an open or secret ballot in line with the party’s constitution. Most of her supporters were in for a secret ballot.
Her comments were quickly tackled by a top chieftain of the party James Gomez who also happens to be the minister of fisheries.
“Honourable Touma and the central committee had been sitting and discussing about the party’s constitution. If she had seen something like this, it would have helped us a lot if she had said it in those meetings and we will see what we will do before we come to congress. She has spoken about the issue of voting but I know in the whole world where they practice democracy, they have a raise-your-hand voting system”, Gomez said.
Touma then returned to the mic to bite back at Gomez’s comments.
“I’m a member of parliament. When we were voting for the majority and minority members of parliament, it was done through secret ballot. In this day and age, secret ballot is what exists,” she said standing her ground for a secret ballot and not an open raise-your-one vote. The politician insisted the constitution of the party could be amended and everyone should agree to way the party holds an election changed.
“They say PPP is one house, anyone who votes for me and another person are all one because in the end we will all work together. And I have shown that here. In the last congress, I supported BB Darbo but when he didn’t win and left, I stayed in the party because I believe in the party. And here too if anyone wins, I will work with you,” she said.
She then spoke directly to the young people attending the congress that it was time for them to take charge of things in the party.
“All of you have heard OJ saying when Sir Dawda appointed him he was 32 years. But just look at our table, you don’t see any youth, you don’t see any women. This is why we need to take women and empower them and take the youth,” she insisted.
MP Muhammed Ndow who was vying for deputy leader of the party then stepped forward and complained that the back and forth was jeopardizing their congress.
“All the work and efforts we put in to get to this day, we can ill-afford not to hold a congress,”Ndow said.
He then responded to Touma’s comment of MPs voting secretly in the instance of minority and majority leaders: “Maybe Honourable Fatoumatta Touma Njai forgot. When we were electing majority and minority leaders, we all raised our hand. We have never had secret ballot at parliament.”
Sanusi Touray who sat in for the party’s national president Lamin Nanko who died then addressed the delegates where he said he believes in the philosophy of one respecting his elders.
“Hon James and OJ who are sitting here are my elders. Whatever they tell me, I do not say a word [to protest]. By this [tradition], anyone who is younger than me should also listen when I speak to them. A child cannot claim the role of elder when the elder is around. That is not respect and I will not be with any child who does that,” Touray said.
Kebba Jallow was by the beginning of the congress the interim leader of the party. He was asked to address delegates on the affairs of the party in the four months he has been in the role.
Speaking to the delegates, Jallow steered clear of anything that has to do with the tension that is raring its head at the congress. Instead he focused on what he has achieved.
“In the four months I have been leader, the work I was trying to continue was for PPP to have a bureau in all seven regions of the country, a requirement by IEC. God has enabled us to achieve that,” he said of one of his achievements. He then campaigned briefly for delegates to vote for someone who knows the party ‘yesterday’ adding, “I’m not a new member in the party”.
He also bragged that he has never lost an election.
“Since 1977 – that was my first election and I won as councilor. I have never lost an election and I will never lose an election,” he confidently said.
Omar Amadou Jallow alias OJ then got his moment to speak but his speech centred largely on PPP: how it came into being and its achievements.
“We should work hard to end the sufffering in our country. What Gambian did you hear had gone on the ‘back way’ and died during the time of Sir Dawda and PPP?” OJ said.
On the issue of the bubbling tension, OJ said, sending the congress to a prayer break: “You can wish anything for this country but peace and the development of this country should stand out. When it comes to PPP, all we know is peace and progress. I want to beg all seated here… A lot of parties held their congress but I did not see disagreement, I did not see quarrel, I did not see push and pull.”
The second half of the congress got underway after the prayer break shortly after 3pm with the issue of voting procedure not yet resolved. And to compound matters, a row erupted after Touma Njai proposed for the candidates to address the delegates where they will lay out their manifestoes to them.
“We came to hear from the candidates themselves, they must speak to us,” one angry Touma Njai supporter told The Fatu Network.
“You should know who you’re voting for. Stand your ground, don’t be afraid, don’t be scared,” Njai told her supporters.
Elsewhere, police separated other delegates as they nearly exchanged blows.
“Tell them to stop the insults,” one delegate tells a police officer.
Touma Njai then told reporters: “They took out the names of all the delegates and put their own names. This is what they did at the last congress and this is what they want to do again. If this is what they are going to do, I will accept the election. And if they hold an election, I will challenge it up to the IEC. I’m challenging the process that they want to take. That process is wrong and it is fraudulent.” She then stormed out with almost all her supporters.
She told The Fatu Network as she left: “PPP is dead, OJ has finally killed PPP.”
At the congress ground, delegates who stayed most of them Kebba Jallow supporters raised their hands in favour of Jallow. A total of 92 delegates voted for him and the EC of the party subsequently returned him as secretary general and leader of the party.
The congress also saw a high-power delegation which according to Kebba Jallow was dispatched by President Adama Barrow. Four NPP pickup trucks and a mini-bus carrying NPP officials came to the congress as well as the president’s special adviser Alkali Conteh and political adviser Siaka Jatta who stayed all throughout the congress. The NPP officials had on stood by the side of Jallow’s supporters on Friday night in a show of support, insisting it would be an embarrassment to them if Jallow did not win, a reporter who overheard the conversations told The Fatu Network.
