A speaker at Barrows current meet-the-people tour threatened IEC and Gambia’s immigration department that if they refuse to issue our national documents to foreigners crossing the border into The Gambia, they would make it a “breaking news.” There is an increase of interference in our internal politics by not only special interest groups of the Kalillu Waggehs and Macky Salls of Senegal, but ordinary nationals beyond Gambia’s frontiers.
We spoke to UDP’s Hagi Suwareh Saturday who explained that a President Barrow meet-the farmers tour speaker, one Pa Jagne in CRR, was piggy-bagging on what was initially mentioned by Hamat Bah as far as creating an easy conduit for foreigners acquiring Gambia’s ID and voters’ card is concerned.
It is clear, Mr. Suwareh lamented that there are actually people inciting foreigners to take part in Gambia’s coming election. Hamat Bah knew the implications of that speaker’s statements and tried later to do some damage control, he added.
The speaker made those foolish assertions in CRR at a Barrow rally he dubbed meet-the-farmers tour. The person (believed to be Pa Jagne) added that they would cross the border and bring people from surrounding villages outside The Gambia and register them to vote.
Suwareh continued, “He said this at a platform in the presence of Barrow. But the President never came out to dismiss such outrageous and illegal remarks. We all knew it was a key NPP henchman making those remarks as to force Hamat Bah to undertake some clean-up interventions.
If statements like these could be made in public for all Gambians to see or hear, what would the NPP do in secret to register foreigners in our country? Mr Suwareh fathomed this and reasoned that the man made such statements because they were about something in the cooking.
“In fact, he got it from Hamat Bah. It was Hamat Bah who first said that there are Gmbians who left the country to graze their cattle in Senegal. So, those people, according to Hamat should come back to register in The Gambia,” he stated.
Those so-called Gambians, Suwareh quoted Hamat Bah, are in their thousands. But we reason with this: Which Gambian will cross the border to live in a foreign land, even if temporarily without first ever acquiring any Gambian document?
Mr. Suwareh again questioned how possible would it be for Gambia being such a small country to have its citizens migrate in their thousands (in the words of Hamat Bah) to a foreign country. It was the likes of Hamat Bah who made similar outrageous assertions, according to Suwareh.
“Be rest assured they are putting President Barrow in a problem he won’t be able to get himself out of. If they push any foreigner to register to vote here, remember that there will be a revising court set up for people to go through the registration list in the registration book of all voters in any particular area,” Suwareh stated.
“And we Gambians know one another, who’s a citizen, and who’s not. Looking at that revising court registration list, if anybody is found with our documents, not only that person, but whoever helped him or her acquire those Gambian documents will be in a serious problem,” he cautioned.
Suwareh added, “This is something we are monitoring very well. We have our own ground forces also working underground, doing investigations. But after the whole registration process ends, a revising court will be set up to vet people who registered and who they really are in our communities.”
He warned , “…and there is community surveillance. Everybody is vigilant in our communities to ensure who’s going to be registered. Barrow knows he can’t do it even in a million years. In these four years, the money wasted by Barrow…”
We reported, last week, how President Barrow’s NPP brought “Gele geles” filled with people from Senegal who spoke on video, confessing that they were answering Adama Barrow’s call to boost his rally in Foni Sintet.