President Adama Barrow on Saturday told a commemorative political rally in Kombo Mamuda that when the National People’s Party (NPP) was formed in 2019, the opposition threatened to “uproot” it, but the NPP leader and secretary-general said the party is still alive and gaining growth in popularity six years on.
President Barrow and his political strategists in December of 2019 blindsided most of the political parties that were existing in The Gambia at the time following the announcement of the birth of the NPP by the country’s elections management body.
In remarks at the NPP’s sixth year commemorative rally in the Kombo South District village of Mamuda, President Barrow stated that when the NPP was registered in 2019, the party’s opponents painted for it a bleak outlook.
“When the party was registered, we never commemorated its advent,” President Barrow said. He continued: “Musa Suso wisely suggested to me that we needed to celebrate the founding of the party, hence our convergence here in Mamuda today. But my mind has been cast very far back. When we were forming the party[NPP] here, our opponents and enemies were saying that President Barrow had no following. They said no one was following President Barrow and that in 2021, they would uproot me like a cassava plant.
These were some of the utterances directed towards me. But I believe the UDP and my opponents are no longer saying that. Uprooting him like cassava, they have now forgotten that utterance and are no longer making it. Do you know what they are now saying? They are now saying that “we cannot remove President Barrow if we do not band together”. Those are the utterances they are now making, the slogan has changed.”
President Barrow contended that the UDP itself lacks the confidence of challenging him at the poll single-handedly.
“Even the UDP lacks the confidence to the extent that they concede that they cannot remove me if a unified front is not presented against me. So, you know those people are incapable of unseating me,” Mr. Barrow bragged.
