By Buba Gagigo
Former Foreign Minister and Diplomat Dr. Momodou Lamin Sedat Jobe has said that it is not too late for President Adama Barrow to send a delegation to the European Union to negotiate and stop the deportation of Gambian citizens.
“I think somebody in Barrow’s government should try to convince him that it is not late to have a powerful delegation to the European Union to say we do understand that you have people that you want to expel but the volume and sudden manner it is taken in a fragile country which has just come from such an experience, we will not be able to absorbed them.
“If we could arrange for them to be given a certain amount of training so that we could be able to bring them in and prepare for their return in a very methodical manner. Then they will not be coming back in shackles and so on. You put them in the streets, give them a few dollars and so on. And Europe will listen,” he said.
Dr. Jobe stated that they were able to avoid deportation under Jammeh’s rule, and that President Barrow can do the same.
“Here they put the president in a very weak position. We refused it, even for great America (During Jammeh’s rule). We are unable to absorbed people if they bring them and I assure you today if somebody could convince Barrow to have a special delegation of respectable people, when they go to Germany, Europe will listen to them. We got a great argument at our disposal. But they see that it’s a very weak government, unfortunately for us. If we say no they cannot do it and if they threaten that they will not give us aid they will come back because they have more interest in maintaining their links with us than in us being angry with them,” he said.
With regard to the situation involving the previous chairman of Brikama Area Council (BAC), Sheriffo Sonko, being appointed as the Protocol and Welfare Officer in Turkey, he stated that there is no such role within the Gambian Embassy in Turkey.
“The former chairman of Brikama Area Council, they have transferred him to the foreign service, and he should go as a welfare officer to Turkey. There is no post of a welfare officer in Turkey, and it has not been budgeted for. So what is going to happen? First of all, they will have to get him a budget and do you understand somebody has been a chairman of Brikama being sent as a welfare officer in an embassy? At that rank, third in command. Even protocol wise is not good for us,” he said.
Dr. Momodou Lamin Sedat Jobe is a diplomat and a former Gambia ambassador to France. He supported President Yahya Jammeh in the 2006 presidential election, but later turned against him.