Football club representatives in Brikama have been reeling with the pain for being elbowed out of the town’s elective congress at the weekend.
“What happened at the congress was a coup d’etat perfectly executed by the Governor’s office and the National Sports Council (NSC),” one disappointed football official told Kairo News. “The NSC and Normalisation Committee (NC) banned some members of Brikama Youth and Sports Association (BYSA) executive from contest as a result of their stance on their injustice move against BYSA.”
Besides, the scheming officials de-registered 15 female clubs of BYSA, reducing club membership from 67 to 52. The voter’s list remained a secret until the night before the congress, purposely to disenfranchise team delegates. In fact, clubs were never asked to send in their names of delegates. Their protest in the form of sending in of their rightful delegates was met with resistance. “All those whose names did not appear on their schemed list were denied entry,” said a football official.
Angry supporters of the overthrown BYSA Chairman Basirou Bajo forced their way into congress hall at the Governor’s office. They halted the proceeding and read a petition questioning the constitutionality of the congress, which they maintained, lacked quorum.
In attendance at the “unconstitutional congress” were the Governor of West Coast Region, Chairman and Executive Director of NSC who helped Karang Lang Jatta to climb to power. “These people know Karang Lang, a senior police officer, cannot be elected into office when Basirou contested,” said a trusted source. “That was why they rushed to the hall and shut the door before Mr. Bajo’s supporters arrived.”
Police Intervention Unit officers were deployed at the congress to contain angry supporters of Mr. Bajo. Two of his supporters were arrested and handcuffed for their defiance to allow the government to dictate what belongs to the youths of Brikama.
“We must not neglect the dictatorial and injustice norms of the Jammeh regime’s looming in our sports administration for the years,” complained another dissatisfied sports official. “We witnessed the GNOC [Gambia National Olympic Committee] and GFF [Gambia Football Federation] sagas and now the Brikama Youths and Sports Association (BYSA) saga which has been on since January this year,” he said, saluting the boys for standing tall against the security forces.” Indeed a sign of no more fear has been demonstrated by Brikama youths who are still determine to fight for their rights and remain loyal to their cause.”
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