A member of the National People’s Party (NPP) has accused some civil society organisations (CSOs) of campaigning against the re-election of President Adama Barrow in his bid for the 2021 presidential election due later this year.
Landing Darboe informed them (CSOs) of never shirked in any way, saying his commitment and other members are to try and develop a state whose agencies act should not be for the personal interest of those who man them at any given time but in the interest of those who they are serving.
He disclosed that to the CSOs that there are some things that everyone can overlook – “the highly-politicised atmosphere in which many of these accusations are raised in the country”.
“Some of the CSOs,” he said “are privy to and complicit [of], where the line between them being independent commentary and being politically-related commentary, is very, very thin and, in many, many cases, there are lines that are, in fact, crossed,” Darboe lamented.
According to him, “there are civil society organisations that mounted campaigns to make sure that President Barrow did not continue to sit in this seat. I don’t know, for myself, I think that there are lots of objective people that will appreciate the positions that President Barrow take”, Darboe posited.
“But nevertheless”, he observed, “when you are in this seat, you are required to listen to everybody, especially to people like you [CSOs], to take into account the statements and the commentary that you make and then we’ll move forward from it”.
“What we all have to be thankful about in The Gambia is that we now have an atmosphere where this kind of discourse can take place without the fear of the midnight knocks because it has not always been like that in this country,” Darboe opined.