Culled from the Point...

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Political Suicide For Any Party Leader To…. OJ Tells BBC

Omar Jallow alias O.J has warned that any party leader who dares to break away from the National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD) will be “committing a political suicide.” He said the Gambian people are now ready for a change.

OJ was talking over BBC during the radio’s ‘Network Africa Programme’ aired Tuesday morning.

Below goes the full text of the interview:

BBC: How confident are you that NADD will hold?

Omar Jallow- Taking into accounts other countries that have formed an alliance/coalition and has been successful, I think we in the Gambia has a lot to learn from those experiences. We have seen what has happened in Senegal our next neighbour. We have seen what happened in Kenya, we have seen what has happened in Mali and other countries. Therefore, it is out responsibility as responsible leaders.

BBC - What have you learnt from those countries?

O.J: What we learnt is that we have to make proper preparations for such an alliance whereby we have to come into an agreement whereby people will be assured if not only a continuous and sustainable policies but which guarantees that there will be no continuous tapping on each others back.

BBC – According to Gambian press reports yesterday, they say that the biggest opposition party the UDP has pulled out of the coalition.

O.J. We have not yet got the correct information because we have not yet received any releases from the secretariat of NADD nor from the secretariat of UDP, but one thing I want to emphasised which is a fact, any of the leaders who walk out of this alliance is committing a political suicide. The Gambian people are ready for a change and what has been taking place particularly the process to bring us together was because of the need being expressed and being imposed on us by the majority of Gambians.

BBC – So what strategies then do you have to win the next election?
O.J: One, we have the people, two we have set up our regional secretariat offices, three we have set up our head-quarters and four we have prepared our rectification programme which we are going to sell to the people as the alternative programme to the APRC programme and five we have put in place a process to which we will select the leader of the alliance.

We have also had a joint constitution which was agreed to by all the parties. People are sick and tired of the despotic government of the APRC.

BBC – And so do you think that you will make up a better President?
O.J: Not me, NADD will produce a better president.

We are not interested in the personality any more, Africa has enough of leaders who are bigger than their parties and their government and that’s what brought all these chaos in Africa. It is high time that the institutions and programmes take precedence over personalities.
BBC – But wasn’t your party in power for that past thirty years, what were you able to do at that time?

O.J: That is why we are now learning from the mistakes of that government. Not that all our thirty years we have made mistakes. We have made lot of gains. Gambia was the best democratic country in Africa.

We developed the health sector, we developed schools, we developed communication, we give the people the chance to be who and what they wanted to be. That coups are the worst accidents of history that is taking place in Africa. The whole of Africa’s development, programme and advancement have been jeopardised mainly by coups.


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