The person responsible for the debacle in the parliament last Thursday is no more than Halifa Sallah. After listening to the audio from parliament this has been universally clear by all sensible and objective Gambian both home and abroad except in the Halifa Sallah camp. This never came as a surprise because the last thing any member of PDOIS will do is to criticize Halifa at least not in public. In PDOIS, going against Halifa Sallah even where he erred is equal to political suicide hence no one will come out and give their opinion on the unfortunate behavior of an unpredictable leader. When they do it will exactly be in the style of Madi Jobarteh’s distortion of events and his quotations of the constitution to justify a behavior everybody except him (Madi Jobarteh) condemn as gone out of control.
Halifa Sallah and the true color of the party he is a leader of was at display on Thursday in our parliament.
The tiff in the parliament occured because of the unpredictable and sometimes arrogant leadership style of Halifa Sallah. Some of us wants to make this a constitutional thing which it is not. Had Halifa stuck on to the loan issue from China and never use decorum when addressing the finance minister Mr. Amadou Sanneh and the speaker of the house Mrs. Denton we will not be discussing this issue. What Halifa did in the parliament is wrong, unacceptable and it is preposterous to squarely lay blame whatsoever on the side of the honorable speaker. It is her prerogative to send someone out of the parliament building if her call for silence and order is not headed in the house. This is exactly what happened and Halifa some how came to his mind and appologised to the speaker for his almost mysogynistic behavior towards the speaker of the house. Yes, we all know and are clearly aware that there can be tuff debates in parliament which can sometimes lead to brawl and scuffle but this Halifa Sallah thing is different and unwarranted.
It is clear beyond doubt that Madi Jobarteh is no sympathizer of this current government which is his right, but that doesn’t mean you have to mislead the public. Halifa Sallah for his part, we all well know has an unmeasurable hatred for UDP so much that seeing madam speaker Denton and finance minister Sanneh coming from the same UDP is unbearable.
Madi Jobarteh should very well know that the constitution cannot be used as cheery picking when ever it suits him. The same Madi Jobarteh used the constitution to justify their failed “Ocuppy Westfield” and to defend the unthoughtful comments by one Dr. Ismaila Cessay on our military and not to mention the famous speech by President Adama Barrow in Turkey. “When did night fall that we cannot reconized one another”. Let us be kind and sincere to ourselves and say write as it is even if that happens to be about ourselves.
No matter how long the truth shall prevail and conquer.
Thank you and until next time God Blesd us and the Gambia.
Alhagi Touray
Stockholm-sweden.
Ends