La probable intervention militaire annoncée par la Communauté économique des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Cedeao) en Gambie pour déloger Yahya Jammeh, installe la psychose chez les populations locales. Nombreux sont les Gambiens qui ont déjà commencé à se réfugier dans le sud du Sénégal, à Ziguinchor notamment et dans ses quartiers périphériques.
«Nous avons tous peur. La situation est très tendue à Banjul»
On ne connait pas leur nombre, mais leur présence devient de plus en plus visible dans la capitale du sud. «Aujourd’hui, si nous avons quitté la Gambie, ma famille et moi, pour débarquer à Ziguinchor, c’est parce que nous avons tous peur. La situation est très tendue à Banjul et bon nombre de familles s’apprêtent à quitter la Gambie pour aller trouver refuge ailleurs. En tout cas ici à Ziguinchor, nous sommes chaleureusement accueillis», confie la dame Fatou Ndiaye dont les propos sont recueillis par le quotidien Vox Populi, qui donne également la parole à d’autres réfugiés gambiens.
Boubacar Jaata, 25 ans, jeune commerçant hébergé par la famille Diatta à Peyrissac, est arrivé à Ziguinchor il y a quatre jours. «Je ne me sens pas en sécurité en Gambie. Je vis dans cette famille où le père est à la retraite, mais je dois avouer que ses épouses, ses enfants et les habitants du quartier ne cessent de faire preuve de générosité à mon endroit», rassure-t-il.
Mais il faut dire que cette affluence des réfugiés gambiens, un phénomène reconnu par les autorités locales, n'est pas toujours bien accueillie. Ces dernières redoutent toutefois que la commune soit envahie par des réfugiés gambiens qu’il sera difficile d’accueillir tous.
«Il n’est pas exclu que nous mettions à la disposition de certaines familles qui n’ont pas de terre d’accueil, le stade omnisport de Néma et certains sites que nous allons aménager», explique un proche collaborateur du maire de Ziguinchor Abdoulaye Baldé. Toutefois, s'empresse-t-il de préciser: «Je ne pense pas que nous allons accueil plus de migrants. Car, la ville risque d’être surpeuplée».
8 Commentaires
Anonyme
En Janvier, 2017 (13:01 PM)Anonyme
En Janvier, 2017 (13:55 PM)Frontières à super surveiller.
Sane De Paris
En Janvier, 2017 (15:57 PM)Anonyme
En Janvier, 2017 (18:18 PM)Anonyme
En Janvier, 2017 (19:03 PM)Anonyme
En Janvier, 2017 (19:11 PM)CESSEZ DE MENTIR.
Anonyme
En Janvier, 2017 (21:20 PM)Kibaaro
En Janvier, 2017 (06:41 AM)Appearing on TFM TV program on 5 January 2017, Maitre Diouf, a veteran lawyer in Senegal, feigned professorial understanding of the current Gambian political impasse, Gambian judicial system and Gambian constitution, yet he exposed his very little knowledge of what is actually happening in The Gambia.
Firstly; he claimed that only provisional Electoral results of the 1 December 2016 Presidential elections were announced on 2 December 2016, when Yahya Jammeh conceded defeat to President Elect Adama Barrow. He added that those results were provisional results and not final. For that reason, according him, Jammeh’s concession means nothing, as it relates to only the Provisional results, which were not final at the time.
Secondly; he claimed that the Gambia’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) admitted to stealing or rigging of votes from Jammeh to Barrow, which was the mistakes announced by the IEC Chairman, Alieu Momar Njie on 5 December 2016. He said it is the electoral commission who cause the whole impasse and not Yahya Jammeh. He branded the two Electoral result papers issued by the IEC for the 2 December 2016 and 5 December 2016 as his evidence of the incompetence of the IEC and their rigging of votes from Jammeh to Barrow.
Thirdly, he claimed that there is a constituted Supreme Court in The Gambia and those claiming that no such constituted Supreme Court exist in The Gambia are spreading false information. He further challenged those that contended that an all Nigerian Supreme Court Judges decision should not be accepted, as they are all foreigners.
Fifthly and finally, Maitre Diouf claimed that he knows the Gambia very well and has extended family there. He claimed he is motivated to take position in the impasse due to his love and care for the Gambian people and love for justice. For this reason, he is setting up a coalition in Senegal with musician Ouza against, any ECOWAS intervention in The Gambia.
It is based on the above succinct synopses, Maitre Diouf wishes to appropriate or take charge of the narrative of the current Gambian political impasse as his, without checking the veracity of his facts about the true picture of issues at play in the Gambian political impasse.
With regards to his first claim, Maitre Diouf’s notion of provisional results and final result is completely misplaced, as the Gambia does not have Provisional and Final results system. Therefore, the results announced on 2 December 2016 was the official final results and not provisional results. This was the final results, President Jammeh accepted on 2 December 2016 to be free and fair! And President Jammeh was indeed right on that first occasion, as the Presidential elections of 1 December 2016 was generally viewed by many as the first free and fair elections in the Gambia. This is attributed to the fact that this was the first election, when the votes were counted at the same spot where the voting took place.
As a result, the ballots were never moved from one place to another, during which, the oppositions had in the past complained about ballot boxes being switched with pre-filled boxes for President Jammeh, by his security forces in charge of the transiting of the ballot boxes. This year that could not happen, allaying any such opportunity for rigging or suspicion. Instead votes were counted at where the voting took place and witnessed by all those who voted at that particular voting place.
Furthermore, there were no reports of any complaints or disturbances at any of the voting and counting places, as counting was done peacefully and all those, who witnessed the counting at the various parts of the country, accepted the results. The counted results were further certified by IEC polling officials and political party agents, before those results are forwarded to the IEC Headquarters for the IEC Chairman to make the announcements.
At the same time, political party agents were also sending the same results to their respective party Headquarters for their own party tallying of the results. Therefore by the time, the last results were announced by the IEC Chairman, on 2 December 2016, it was clear to Jammeh and his party that they had lost the election, because his party agents would have told them about the results of their various locations. If there were any issues with the results, the party agents would have also told the same to Jammeh. Therefore, Jammeh accepted the elections results not because of the IEC’s mistake, but because his own party agents reported no irregularities to him and from their witnessed results, he lost the elections fair and square.
The corrections announced by the IEC on 5 December 2016 related to the correction of the final totalling of the national results, which they made an error after double entering the results for the Basse region twice for each of parties in the national results. Thereby increasing the final national results of each of the parties by about 20,000 more votes. They corrected this mistake by simply deducting the additional increment from each of the parties’ total national results, to get to the accurate final figure, which would have corresponded with the final tally of each of the parties.
From this narration, it is clear that Matitre Diouf’s claims that, the IEC had rigged the ballots in favour of the opposition is quite simply unfounded, as such is impossible without Jammeh knowing about it before his concession speech of 2 December 2016. Secondly, Maitre Diouf failed to appreciate the fact that, in the Gambia under Jammeh, with the level of his grip on power and the level of fear he instilled in Gambians, it would be suicidal or almost impossible for anyone to contemplate on cheating Jammeh! Therefore, the veteran Senegalese lawyer should have verified his facts first before bragging his expertise in a subject, where he has zero knowledge.
With regards to the Supreme Court, Maitre Diouf disputed the claims that there is only one Judge at the Supreme Court, being the Chief Justice, Emannuel Fagbenle; but failed to mention the names of the other Supreme Court Judges currently in the Gambia. This is because most Gambians, including all of the Gambian lawyers, do not know any other Judge of the Supreme Court, besides the Chief Justice. In fact the Gambian Bar Association said they had written to the Chief Justice, Fagbenle, in June 2016 to remind him of the lack of a constituted Supreme Court in the country. If the court had been constituted, the big question would certainly be, why was it done in secret, instead of the constitutional procedure of announcing such appointments to the public, swear in such Judges in public, and publish their names for the public knowledge. Therefore, Maitre Diouf is misinformed about the constitution of the Supreme Court at present, and should quite simply check his facts and back them up with authority, as expected of lawyers. But he seems to be allowing Jammeh and his propagandists to use his intellect like a complete clown.
Furthermore, with regards to the nationality of the Judges, Maitre Diouf should have just asked himself, why a country like The Gambia, whose lawyer is currently serving as the International Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, with Judges heading the International Criminal Tribunals in Rwanda, and has a functioning Bar Association for more than 40 years, is not having its citizens as Judges at the highest court of the land. Rather than bantering about why the country has a right to appoint foreigners. What is wrong with the Gambian lawyers, who are qualified enough to serve as Judges at that court?
The simple answers to these questions will help the Maître to understand why it is inappropriate for the Gambian citizens to be discriminated, in such a way – by their own President – in their own country. If the Maitre is indeed a Maitre, who went to University and studied to gain his law degree, as supposed to buying his law degree, he would understand why people are justified to question the rational behind an all Nigerian Supreme Court Judges deciding an important constitutional question for Gambians in the Gambia.
Finally, Maitre Diouf also claimed to have been motivated to engage in the current Gambian political impasse, as a result of his love for the Gambian people and family relations, as well as his love for justice. This compels one to ask the question, where was Maitre Diouf in the last twenty-two years of Jammeh’s misrule in The Gambia? When Jammeh was arbitrarily arresting, detaining, torturing and killing Gambians. Was Maitre Diouf too busy at the time or unconcerned to notice? He did not seem to have any interest of the Gambian plight then, until after Gambians had voted out Yahya Jammeh, then he wants come to their aid. This begs one to question, whether Maitre Diouf is truly in for Gambians best interest, or he is purely interested in entrenching Yahya Jammeh’s dictatorship over the Gambian people for another five years. Gambians are no fools to fall for such disguise.
If Maitre Diouf have any interest in the plight of the Gambian people, he should simply call on the Out-Going President Yahya Jammeh to relinquish power. The Gambian people have spoken and both he and Yahya Jammeh should respect that!!!
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