By Buba Gagigo
Former National Assembly Member for Niamina East Constituency, Hon. Omar Ceesay, revealed that the inclusion of a lucrative Judicial Pension provision in the draft constitution was one of the factors that led to the rejection of the draft constitution by NPP MPs.
“This very provision alongside the term limit formed part of the reasons that led to the failure of the said draft on the second reading before the floor of the house by the NPP surrogates NAMs. Guess what, Due to NPP and UDP political differences, the affected NAMs believe that this provision was meant for Honorable Darboe, UDP leader, and his cohorts. Such a secret was never made public but they convinced each other on this ground indoors which was filtered down to other party NAMs like the GDC. One would recall that there was a fraction of votes within GDC NAMs,” hon. Omar Ceesay said.
The former MP stated that the crucial provisions of the mentioned bill were also present in the well-known draft constitution, which, he asserted, was prematurely dismantled by UDP MPs who switched to the NPP, along with other NPP coalition NAMs from different parties during the fifth legislature.
He questioned the motives of the government in carving out this portion of the draft into a stand-alone bill.
“Certainly, I can’t anticipate what the result of this bill could be but my concern surrounding this whole development is that if the government goes all out to extract this portion of the draft as a specific bill why can’t they do the same for the term limit part of it. Let’s watch the green snake under the green carpet,” he said.