“Fellow citizens, don’t be divided and misled by corrupt public officials whose children are attending the best schools, their wives and relatives going to the best hospitals at your expense. If electricity goes off, they have standby generators for their homes with quality meals. These people will never let you know your rights as enshrined in the constitution,” the group said in a press release signed by its National Chairman Seedy Cham.
The CPG was responding to Dou Sanno, presidential political adviser who recently in an audio released urged Gambians to disregard the planned protest of the pressure group.
“We cannot be intimidated. But this is what we expect as we unite to fight corruption and government’s underperformance. Corrupt public officials will attack us and label us with all sorts of names because of fear of accountability. We are people of peace and will always preach peace. Nobody loves this country more than we do. If you’re performing well as a government, why fear when citizens call for accountability and transparency? More importantly, the state can maintain peace and stability in the country if they are honest, truthful, and sincere and treat citizens equally,” the group said.
“Brothers and sisters, the constitution empowers you to peaceful demonstrations under Section 25 to manifest your grievances. That has nothing to do with violence. It is only people in power or their associates who don’t want to be held accountable. They therefore, do everything to describe this as violence because their survival depends on public resources. To stop the spread of corruption, we are all duty-bound to be watchdogs and support one another as ordinary citizens to hold the government accountable in a quest to promote transparency for meaningful and sustainable developments.”
“We never heard or comprehend anything that the President said to the citizens of The Gambia that his administration is doing to fight corruption or to further stop its spread in his administration. It’s a cancer that is killing our country at an alarming rate by bringing the culprits to justice.”
“We simply don’t give much relevance to Dou Sanno because he cares less about ethics or morals governing his position. He has done himself many embarrassments by coming to public platforms, before us the citizens, and releasing WhatsApp audios intimidating and threatening media folks and innocent citizens that are paying his monthly salary. He could have instead, told us what his advice is to the Barrow administration and what they will do differently going forward to stop the spread of corruption or the daily skyrocketing commodity prices without blaming other countries or the pandemic.”
“In conclusion, we believe that the president himself knows that Dou Sanno never added any value to the president’s day-to-day governance that can change the lives and livelihoods of citizens of our beloved country as far as the role and responsibilities of an adviser are concerned.”
“To our fellow Gambians, we really have a leadership issue in our country. We therefore humbly urge all citizens, regardless of our party backgrounds to join hands and rescue our country from corruption and mismanagement of public resources.”
