President Adama Barrow has explained how he told former justice minister Abubacarr Tambadou that Essa Faal was using the TRRC for political gain.
The former justice minister tapped Mr Faal as the TRRC’s lead prosecutor in 2018 but President Barrow said on Wednesday he has always been suspicious of the lawyer.
The president told his supporters at his Buffer Zone rally: “When he was at the TRRC, my minister who brought Essa Faal which is Abubacarr Tambadou. When I observed how he was conducting the TRRC, I called the minister and told him this man that you brought is politicking at the TRRC. I told him he will seek the presidency. He told me he would not dare do that. I told him wallahi he will. He went and confronted him and he said he has no interest in politics. I told him a day will come when I will tell you again. But I knew it early. One day he came to see me. He said he wanted a land, a land government would allocate to him to build houses and sell them. When he came, I told him ‘the most popular person in Gambia has come to see me today’. I tried to speak to him about it but he said he is not that type of person. But I knew he was politicking.
“But it’s unfortunate that someone who claims to be educated to be given a role involving victims… You should support those people but you’re using them for political gain. That is really unfortunate. You turned the TRRC into politics since that’s where he used for the whole Gambia to know him. And he is still using the TRRC to politic. But I want to tell the victims I will not use them for political gain. If I am looking for votes, I will look for it elsewhere than the TRRC and the victims who are aggrieved and hurt and need support. But let the victims know I am the architect of TRRC, I am the face of TRRC, I instituted it and I will be the one to implement it. Because I know on the 4th of December 2021, I will be the one who will win in this country. So let no one fool you. I will not politicize it as I don’t want cheap politics. You can’t take a knife and be stabbing someone in the back telling him you will help him when you will not.
“I appointed him there but he benefitted more than the place did from him since he was being paid more than myself. His salary was D500,000 and my salary was D200,000. So he profited from there. If he wanted to help the TRRC people and the victims, he would have said he would volunteer and come and work for Gambia for free. That’s when we would know he has come to help. But he asked for a big pay and we paid him big money and he has now turned and using the TRRC for political gain.”
