By: Momodou Justice Darboe
The Gambian leader Adama Barrow has fumed that Lawyer Ousainou Darboe should fear God.
“I heard that my father hosted a press conference in the past days and he said the politics that was here still exists. He said that dictatorship still exists. But I will tell my father that as a human being, no matter how you are, you must fear God. To fear God is to say things as they are,” Mr. Barrow raged as he delivered his speech at the inauguration of the NPP regional bureau in Bansang on Friday.
According to President Barrow, the Gambia’s current political climate is a far cry from that of the past dispensation.
He added: “If you compare today and yesterday, it’s like the sky and earth. That platform he used to address a press conference was made possible through our democracy. He was here for 20 years but he never had that kind of a platform. To sit on a platform, castigating our police, insulting our police, uttering bad words against our police…even if they were at home and shot in this country, even if he drank alcohol, he will not have the courage to say those things in the past dispensation. But it’s President Barrow, who gave him that platform.”
Mr. Barrow charged that Darboe should measure his words before uttering them. He continued: “I heard a journalist pose a question to him that President Barrow said he(Barrow) ordered the paramilitary to teargas Three Years Jotna protesters. He(Darboe) said I am not material for President because I am a scoundrel but I want to tell him that if I were a rogue…I worked with him for 10 years and within that, he never underrated me and he knew me for only work. No matter how desperate he wants to become president, he must assess his utterances. I think he needs to do that. If President Barrow is a rascal, then UDP will not have confidence in me as their candidate.”
Barrow told supporters that he was chosen to lead because the UDP had confidence in him. He added: “The reason for them selecting me on that day was that they had confidence in me because they knew that my father was in jail alongside UDP supporters and if no one fought to remove Jammeh, by now they are all dead and buried. This is why I was selected. I was the General of The Gambia and that’s why I fought for this country. The one he was fighting with repeatedly defeated him and turned around to imprison him and his supporters. I never backtracked and fought until such time that I succeeded in uprooting the person, who imprisoned him and when I won, I freed him from jail.”
Mr. Barrow ranted that Darboe’s utterances of today are at variance with those of yesterday.
“The day he was freed…what he is saying today and that day is different. I met him at his house and when I shook hands with him, he called me Prophet Mousaaaa,” Barrow mocked with hands thrown into the air amidst laughter from his audience that could be heard almost a kilometer away.
“Yesterday, he said I was prophet Musa but if your father became desperate to the extent that he called you Prophet Musa, you must also have something to say. I held his hand and said Nelson Mandelaaa because I wanted him to be consoled as he fought for The Gambia but we were the ones, who completed the fight,” harangued the President.
“All the prayers for UDP to lead this country came to Barrow. That’s why UDP will never lead. One must accept the will of God. If you want to undo what God did, you will die and leave behind what Allah did. It’s Allah, who brought me. He is my marabout and compass. When I came, I opened the doors for my father and made him proud by appointing him a foreign minister and Vice President but he who does not want honor cannot be honoured. He started fighting but I told him that since you wanted to fight, I would sack you and all your followers,” Barrow told his audience.
Still continuing his tirade against Darboe, Barrow said: “God pitched us against each other in an election and I won him in a way none did in The Gambia. He is old and I told him that he would be retired and let him go to the mosque and be a Caliph so we can be giving him charity. But to be castigating the police, our democracy… If there was no democracy, the police would have met him at the press conference, tied him up, and thrown him into jail. I was brought up by religious people. Nobody knew me for being worthless. I am hard working and nobody knew me for drinking alcohol. People knew me for only hard work. We will tell you we have put our lives on the line. This country is for NPP.”