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Dibba responds to Abdoulie Touray’s letter to NA on GNOC presidential election

Jan 19, 2011, 1:01 PM | Article By: Alhaji Momodou Dibba, GNOC Presidential Candiate

The GNOC presidential candidate Momodou Dibba has responded to a letter written by his opponent, Abdoulie Touray, to the National Assembly Select Committee on Youth and Sports regarding the ongoing GNOC impasse.

Touray, who is vying for the GNOC hot seat together with Momodou Dibba, was reacting to the National Assembly’s interim report on the upcoming GNOC presidential election slated for February 22.

Dibba however wasted no time in responding to rival candidate Touray’s letter to the National Assembly Select Committee on Youth and Sports on the interim report.

Below is the full text of the letter sent to Pointsport by Dibba:

My dear colleagues in sports and members of the Gambian Public, I send you the New Year greetings with wishes for peace and stability in our homeland, The Gambia.

I have been silent for a very long time, while my opponent Mr Abdoulie Touray has been talking and complaining and ranting about un-warranted rights as a presidential candidate, in the process, misleading the Gambian people.

It is high time to stop all this things so that we look forward to putting the development agenda in place.

Mr Touray has been deceiving you about what is wrong and try to manipulate your minds with lectures on the Olympic Charter, the GNOC Constitution, and the National Sports Council Act, of which he is one of the authors. I am not going to follow the same path because I want to present myself as a genuine contender.

The National Assembly Select Committee on Youth and Sports has given us a clear-cut decision on how to conduct the forthcoming GNOC Presidential election, which is acceptable to all and sundry, except Mr Touray.

I wish to inform the general public and the sport fraternity and all my supporters that as a presidential contender for the GNOC, I fully respect the decision of the National Assembly Select Committee on Youth and Sports. I will not condone any obstruction or misinformation from my opponent that could hinder the process and smooth running of the GNOC Presidential Election for the Second Time. All that I am advocating is for justice to prevail. Thanks to Allah justice is being done.

Mr Touray has been Secretary-General for 20 years. If he had put the right electoral systems in place during his tenure in office, the GNOC elections would have been smoothly conducted without any hitches. What Mr Touray as an aspiring candidate should be telling the public is what proper systems he should put in place during his tenure in office.

His complaints and ranting means that there has never been any election in the history of the Gambia NOC.

This is the first election being held, and all other elections were manipulated and rubber stamped.

The year 2011 will mark the first proper election, and the GNOC is right now instituting the systems for a proper elections. Therefore, I applaud the National Assembly for their initiative in helping the GNOC to set up an electoral system for the 2011 elections.

I stand for development and justice for all Associations as a Presidential candidate.