As part of his Europe-wide tour to drum up support for his party ahead of the 2026 general election, the UDP leader has hinted that his removal from office as foreign minister and that of former OIC Banjul secretariat boss Lamin Sanneh had avoidable financial implications for the Gambian taxpayer.
Lawyer Ousainou Darboe explained that The Gambia could have hosted the OIC summit without financially burdening the taxpayer, describing the OIC Banjul Summit as a missed opportunity for Gambians.
According to the UDP leader, had the summit panned out as originally planned, the taxpayer would not have paid for the OIC roads or the financial burden would have been much lighter.
“And if the OIC Summit had gone to plan and if Lamin Sanneh was not forcefully removed because his removal coincided with my removal, I’m not saying that no loan would have been contracted to construct the roads, but it wouldn’t be much because we knew what we did,” he stated.
The veteran opposition leader said the Barrow administration tried to use the summit to look for ways of ensnaring Gambians in debt.
“Even vehicles, we and Lamin Sanneh made sure the Saudi government would have given us vehicles. Why would vehicles be lent from Mauritania? You [Barrow government] claimed that you would rent others [vehicles] from Senegal. Why would you purchase other vehicles? All that was just to trap Gambians in debt,” Darboe maintained.
