In a thinly-veiled attack against President Adama Barrow, the secretary-general and leader of the UDP Lawyer Ousainou Darboe has hinted that President Adama Barrow’s inclination towards aiding and abetting official corruption should be loathed by the masses.
Hon. Darboe expressed disappointment in the Barrow administration’s “ploy to force into the throats” of Gambians a constitution that guarantees immunity for the President and ministers for all corrupt practices from 2016 to the beginning of 2024.
“They said these people [President and cabinet ministers] should not be investigated, but these are the people responsible for awarding contracts and they should be answerable to us, yet they insisted that those people should not be investigated. The masses should loathe a leader, who thinks like that,”Hon. Darboe stated as he addressed a group of women from the UDP, who went to his office at Pipeline, to deliver their Eid gift to him in a symbolism of respect, hope and confidence.
“Our goal is to end the pillage [of national coffers] in this country. The government said it enacted an anti-corruption legislation but there is a provision therein that bars investigation into corrupt practices that happened before January 2024. You insist the President and ministers will not be probed and you said that is the right thing,” stated Darboe. “We have to make a change in this country. We spent D116M on building a constitution and this document has laws that will promote honesty, but they jettisoned it on flimsy grounds and ganged together to produce the 2024 draft, which provided that the President should not be probed after leaving office, a minister should not be investigated after his/her tenure of office. But they insisted that NAMs and judges should be investigated. They want the people to swallow that constitution hook, line and sinker.”
The veteran politician was also disappointed that the bare bones of the 2024 draft have not been broken to the masses in advocacy efforts around it.
“I am not sure whether it’s the NCCE, which is criss-crossing the country, claiming to be popularising it [2024 draft] to the masses without telling the people of the bad provisions in that draft. Of course, we need a constitution but we need progressive laws,” he highlighted.
