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“I have respected everybody in this house. I want you to respect me. I don’t want to put you in a hot soup because I know your privacy. I [don’t] want people to know.”
During proceedings to bury the Barrow administration’s ill-concocted constitution, the legislator for Lower Saloum, Hon. Sainey Jawara (NRP) dropped a veiled threat against Sanementereng’s NAM Hon. Fatou Cham (UDP) in a heated exchange Monday, July 7th 2025.
Is this some blackmail to silence the Brufut female NAM or what? Jawara accused Cham of rejecting an earlier legislation against female circumcision just out of party interest. Cham countered with a procedural interjection, denying Jawara’s claims. Jawara then came with a serious ad hominem after a marathon assault on the English language first.
The NRP NAM addressed Cham, “I have respected everybody in this house. I want you to respect me. I don’t want to put you in a hot soup because I know your privacy. I [don’t] want people to know.” Due to his parlance reeling with speech and language impediments, it’s not clear if he meant to say “I don’t want to…” and it came off as, “I want to…”
We wondered why Fabakary Tombong Jatta allowed him to unleash personal attacks on a female legislator, or any legislator for that matter. He went on for a solid 38 minutes, directing his tirade against his colleagues and not addressing the speaker.
The same Fabakary Tombong Jatta interrupted the member for Sami, Alfusainey Ceesay (UDP) who was making his remarks and suddenly an NPP member cut in. Ceesay was clearly seen maintaining his cool and politely asking the NPP knucklehead to let him finish.
But Fabakary rebuked Ceesay for directly telling the rubble-rouser to quit. He said the Sami NAM should not directly address the NPP dimwit to stop interrupting him. Jatta never condmned the NPP NAM for directly addressing Fatou Cham.
Fabakary, instead of asking the rude NPP member to stop, frowned at the Sami representative, scolding him for just telling the NPP member to allow him finish. Fabakary did not intervene to stop the NRP NAM from Lower Saloum when he vented personal attacks against Fatou Cham.
This is not the first time we observe clear hatred for the opposition from Fabakary. Remember, if the 2020 draft had passed, he wouldn’t have been speaker of the house because that constitution did not allow the president to nominate five useless sycophants to our august body.
The NRP member went on with his garbage unhinged when he further confused listeners with the English he couldn’t explain. He stated, “foreigners banking the land” in The Gambia. At this, member for Latrikunda Sabiji sought the Speaker’s permission to ask Jawara what he meant by foreigners banking the land.
Again, Fabakary came heavy on Hon. Sanyang, rescuing Jawara from any explanation of his nauseating phraseology—perhaps another clear reason for introduction of our local languages in the House. It will save us headaches!
Jawara added that the youths “are captured in this draft constitution.” We are still trying to recover from this one. There is a constitution that captures youths? Please Gambia, allow our National Assembly members to speak our local languages.
Read Hon. Jawara’s remarks for yourself: “But while you people has made Gambians to fail…even you yourself, you were the person advocating for the process of this draft constitution, you honorable member….everybody were going against it….foreigners banking the land…the youth are captured in this draft constitution…if you’re telling ko I reject it because I’m a woman advocator…”
The “Ko” here is a Mandinka equivalent for “that” as in “If you’re saying that…” But then a Freudian slip took over his tongue when he automatically inserted the local language in the middle of his sentence. Gambia! You’re screwed!
These are the cadre of legislators deciding on issues that affect our daily lives and that of our children and grandchildren? How can this guy and many of his ilk in the House sit to come with any informed choices for us? No wonder, he would rather attack a woman!