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By Omar Bah
UDP leader Ousainu Darboe last week told The Standard that his claim that he would have bothered if the likes of Ebrima Dibba left the UDP when reacting to Momodou Sabally’s decampment to the NPP in December 2023, has been misinterpreted.
Mr Darboe explained: “I think the interpretation that people are giving to it is wrong. I am not saying that when they leave I will be concerned with the political impact of that. You see, when you have relationships – deep personal relationships – cut off, it becomes a bit tormenting emotionally. They are my sons. So it is not that their departure or their leaving the UDP is going to have any political impact on UDP but me emotionally as a person, because of the relationships that I have had with them. That is bound to happen. It is just like when your son or daughter dies. That is what I was referring to, not that it is going to have any political impact. No.”
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Commenting on criticisms that he is neither electable nor likeable, the UDP leader who is currently on a fundraising tour of Europe stated: “I think there is no political party leader that enjoys the support and love I enjoy from the Gambian people. President Adama Barrow, may be because of the presidency, some people pretend to love him when they really do not. But those people following me give me unalloyed love; love that is not tainted and is sincere and thank God I am enjoying that and I hope to continue enjoying that.”
He added: “The UDP will continue to brand Ousainu Darboe as the honest person who has a lot of compassion for this country and a patriot who since he graduated and took up the legal profession has been consistent in fighting for good causes as prosecutor and a lawyer. A man who ensured that people were not prosecuted without evidence. His continued love for justice is what will tell the people that. You cannot compare him with any other person in that as having stood by the weak or the underprivileged who were confronting the full power of the executive; how he stood by them and gave them free services and how he gave up his life for this country.
“No political leader would have done what I did [on 16 April 2015 after the arrest and killing of Solo Sandeng]. I did that in the interest of our country. If I hadn’t gone out to challenge the dictatorship, people would have been muscled and nobody would dare say what they are saying. I think that is what the Gambian people will be told so that they know who Ousainu Darboe is and not listen to these negative things that people say for no other reasons than trying to promote themselves which they never dared to do before 2016.”
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Darboe commended political party leaders like Halifa Sallah, Hamat Bah, Mai Fatty and Henry Gomez for putting up their heads over the parapet even before 2016.
