Press
release
Banjul,
The Gambia—Following widespread and conflicting reports alleging that President
Barrow has assured his predecessor, President Yaya Jammeh, to return to The
Gambia with guaranteed state protection and all privileges befitting a former
Head of State, President Adama Barrow categorically refutes this report as
fatally false.
Therefore,
President Barrow wants Gambians and the international community to know that he
is keenly following the revelations before the Truth, Reconciliation and
Reparations Commissions (TRRC) and could not therefore, utter statements that
may potentially be prejudicial to the Commission’s work such as his alleged
promise of state protection and retirement privileges to Yaya Jammeh as the
‘false report’ purports to convey.
While
President Barrow made statements about ex-President Jammeh at Berefet and
Sibanorr villages in the Fonis last week, his utterances were purely
hypothetical. While on his annual “Presidential Meet The People Tour”, Mr.
Barrow told Gambians that even If President Jammeh were to return to The Gambia
some day, he could never again be a President and could only live as an
ordinary citizen and nothing else. Mr. Barrow offered no protection nor any
privileges whatsoever as is being bandied around social media and some news
outlets. It is totally false and very unfortunate that such a direct statement
is deliberately mischaracterized for purely political reasons.
However,
during the same meetings, President Barrow also alluded to conversations that
transpired between him and Equatorial Guinea’s leader, President Obiang
regarding ex-President Jammeh’s late mother’s burial and his (Barrow’s)
magnanimity to facilitate that request.
Mr.
Barrow told the large crowds that Yaya Jammeh was shamed by his previous
belligerence of denying two prominent citizens, Messrs. Bubacarr Michael Baldeh
and Kukoi Samba Sanyang burial rights after they died in Dakar and Mali
respectively. Consequently, Hon. Bubacarr Michael Baldeh, a former
Parliamentarian and State Minister and Mr. Sanyang, the leader of the 1981
failed coup d’etat were buried in Medina Gunnas, Cassanance and Dakar
respectively.
According
Mr. Barrow, even if President Jammeh’s late mom, Fatou Asombi Bojang, were to
return home alive, he would have accorded her all the privileges befitting the
mother of a former Head of State. Besides, the late Madam Bojang was a private
citizen who never offended any Gambian and deserved nothing less than the best,
President Barrow said.
Signed:
Ebrima
G Sankareh
The
Gambia Government Spokesperson
