By Buba Gagigo
The former National President, Citizens’ Alliance (CA), Dominic Mendy said Dr. Ismaila Ceesay has confirmed to him receiving vehicles from President Barrow’s National People’s Party (NPP), prior to the 2021 presidential election.
“CA had an issue with Abdurahim Jallow. Abdurahim Jallow complained about the fact that Dr Ismaila Ceesay received vehicles from the NPP prior to the election and he deployed those vehicles in certain decisions using party members to go around to the CA base and asked them to vote for the NPP. That was his allegation. That allegation came and we tried to resolve that internally. I was the party president. It’s my job to investigate and find out if it had happened.
“And if it had happened we should use internal mechanisms to resolve that and make sure it does not happen again. We went through all of that. But eventually, Ismaila decided that this fellow should be sent out of the party for saying what he said. So, it is now time for us to speak the truth. I called him (Dr Ismaila Ceesay) to my office and said you don’t have to go out with this young man because what the man said is true. He got vehicles from them (NPP) and he deployed them without using the proper party structures because that would be a problem,” he said.
Mr Mendy said Abdurahim Jallow was investigated internally but they eventually investigated Ismaila himself and discovered that Dr Ismaila Ceesay took vehicles from the president.
“Ismaila agreed that he received these vehicles from the NPP. When that happened, Ismaila came to me and told me that he received these vehicles and he has deployed them. I told him you should not have done that because when you were going there, I warned you that the President might ask you for a few things, but there are certain things you must tell him, even if you want to do them, that you have to go back to your party. It’s only the party that can take those decisions,” Mendy added.
He said the CA National executive discussed and decided to reprimand Dr. Ceesay verbally, and warned him never to repeat the act.
“We thought it was finished, Ismaila went and had an interview with Meng Bekering TV and said so many things including this subject matter, and that triggered Abdurahim Jallow to go and clarify. And Ismaila’s verdict was the boy to leave the party, but I said he cannot,” he continued.
The former CA National President said he told Ismaila for them to sit down and sort things out with the boy and he said Dr Ceesay agreed in his office, while Nenneh Freda Gomez was there as witness.
“I called Abdurahim Jallow (After Dr. Ceesay had agreed) and he came to my office. When Ismaila left, Abdurahim Jallow was already downstairs. Ismaila sent a message to say Abdurahim Jallow was downstairs and he felt I was conspiring with Abdurahim Jallow to fight him. Fight him for what? After all, if I had wanted to fight him, I would have brought this out into the public domain.
“He agreed that he did this thing (Taking vehicles from NPP) but in his own person (capacity). Can you be a party president and go to another party and they ask you for endorsement, you said ‘no, I will endorse you in my personal capacity’ but not as the president of the other Party? That is not possible,” Dominic explained.
He said when that happened he wrote an email to their national executive and advised them on how to approach the programme and the way forward; but Dr. Ismaila Ceesay decided to suspend his powers.
“Ismaila suspended my powers as National President. He did not use the word suspend. He went and decided to establish an investigation committee without regard to the email I wrote for the way forward. He took bogus members like Rafie Diab and others into the committee. And I allowed them to go through the process but at the end of the process, I called the chairman of the committee , Ali Jagne (in diaspora). And I said after you have investigated Abdurahim Jallow, can you also investigate Ismaila? Because Ismaila agreed to and I know that he went to see the President and I also know that he came back to me and said that he received those vehicles and deployed them. So they investigated him. He refused, but eventually agreed, but said he did that in his own personal capacity. Somebody who has a PhD in political science thinks like a little child in politics. It’s not because he doesn’t know, he is very wise, it’s because of dishonesty, this is the point,” he concluded.
The news of Dominic Mendy’s resignation as the National President of the Citizens’ Alliance emerged last week after expressing dissatisfaction in the way the party was going.
The former CA National President made these remarks against the party leader in an interview with this medium.
Meanwhile, the CA leader, Dr, Ismaila Ceesay could not be reached for comments after the interview, but wrote on Twitter: “Unfortunately I don’t and won’t respond to lunatics and their loads of rubbish.”