By: Adama Makasuba
Former President of Gambia Press Union (GPU) has described former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh as a ‘lunatic’.
Ndey Tapha Sosseh, is the fifth person to testify in the Truth Reconciliation and Reparation Commission’s ongoing institutional hearing.
This week, the Truth Commission commenced institutional hearings in which some media practitioners and representatives of the Gambia Press Union testified.
Meanwhile, in Ndey Tapha Sosseh’s testimony on Thursday, she said “I always see him (Yahya Jammeh) as a lunatic. He didn’t know his orders as a President.”
She also testified on the reasons that surrounded her exile, saying she was in Mali on a mission when former President Yahya Jammeh granted an interview to the GRST in which Jammeh used disparaging remarks against the slain journalist Deyda Hydara.
In this interview, Mrs Sosseh told the Commission that, she been the President of Gambia Press Union felt Jammeh’s remarks was ‘disrespectful and disparaging’ against one of the most vocal Gambian journalist whom stood for human rights.
She explained that she later wrote a letter on behalf of the Gambia Press Union condemning the remarks of the ex- President Jammeh.
She said that this letter didn’t go well with Jammeh that him to the ordering arrest of seven Gambian journalists.
She said she wrote series of letters to International Organizations like African Union and Economic Community of West African States including media affiliated bodies in exposing the hide of continues human rights violation by Yahya Jammeh’s government on Gambians especially journalists.
According to her, she granted interviews on the then situation in the Gambia to different profession organization for almost three months.
Meanwhile, Ndey Tapha Sosseh told the Commission that when Deyda Hydara was killed by unknown gunmen in 2004, that Gambia Press Union sought a permit to march in solidarity of the Deyda’s death.
She disclosed that for the one anniversary Deyda Hydara’s death, the GPU invited the government for commemoration, but the government of Jammeh failed to honour their invitation by deploying heavy security armed men at where Deyda is said to have been killed.
“This was a way to show the whole World the government was not taken this matter serious but we invited them, put their names on the high table,” she told the Commission.