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O.J. pissed off with The Gambia Journal
29 November, 2009 05:20:00
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A Gambia Journal editor who called veteran politician, former Minister
in the Jawara administration, leader of the defunct former ruling PPP
party and member of the NADD executive Omar Jallow, ran into a verbal
showdown with him leading to Mr. Jallow hanging the phone on him. It
was on Wednesday November 25, 2009 at about 10:30 that Mr. Jallow was
called and invited to give a message through the online journal to the
Gambians at home and in the Diaspora on the occasion of the Muslim
feast of Eid al Adha, or Tobaski. Mr. Jallow asked the editor to call
back, since he was then with some people.

The Gambia Journal had called other figures of the Gambian opposition
offering them chance to deliver messages to their constituencies. When
the editor called about two and a half hours later, Mr. Jallow sounded
brusque and haughty and blamed the Gambia Journal for “tarnishing his
image” two years ago for asking if rumors then circulating of his
crossing over to the ruling APRC party were true. The editor admitted
that yes it was The Gambia Journal that published that in an
editorial, but said it was a question, not a definitive statement.
“Why didn’t you contact me to verify before you published it?” The
editor answered that they tried to but could not come through. Mr.
Jallow reacted that it could not be true as everybody who wanted to
get to him got through. The Gambia Journal editor insisted that they
did try but could not get to him.

The editor explained that after the publication, a friend of O.J.’s
resident in the United, did called and protested O.J.’s innocence and
was told that he was invited to write and refute the story on The
Gambia Journal site. But according to the editor ”Mr. Omar Jallow was
not listening, he was going on and on and on trying so hard to
establish what he has done for Gambia and the times he went to jail
when Jawara was in England. I was able to get my words through to him
when he paused to take in some oxygen, the editor said. Mr. Jallow
said Mr. Sankara of The Gambia Echo forwarded him the article when he
was in Nigeria and he gave his side of the story to the Gambia Echo.
Mr. Jallow said that he was disappointed because he thought we were
all on the same camp.

When he finally quiet down, I told him that it is evident that there
is a difference between our paper and him, but he has a constituency
to talk to and if he is still interested in talking to that
constituency? Mr. Jallow said he doesn’t trust us and hung up.

The Gambia Journal still stands by our editorial but that being said,
we will also not stop trying to respectfully reach out to Mr. Omar
Jallow for him to talk to his constituency.

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