Following the 1994 military coup which toppled country’s first ruler Dawda Kairaba Jawara, soldiers have unceremoniously seized assets of top government officials
Bakary Bunja Darboe, former vice president of the Gambia, has said they will fight in the court to recover their assets seized by the state under the leadership of former dictator Yahya Jammeh.
Darboe, a member of People’s Progressive Party, and other top officials were accused of corruption following the overthrow of first president Dawda Kairaba Jawara.
Jammeh established two commissions on inquiry, Bafo and Alghali Commissions, to investigate the former PPP ministers.
The outcome of the Alghali Commission was never made public.
“When the military came and overthrew the Government which was a heinous crime, they took on the party members with such a ferocious hostility. They jumped on our properties and seized all of them without the most elementary process… Even out archives, they vandalized it,” Darboe said at a party press conference on Monday.
“And much to my own embarrassment even after the dictator has ended two years ago, the successor Government, in the name of the principle of continuity, is still holding onto our properties. This cannot be right.
“If the former government is notorious for its criminality, the successor government should, immediately after assuming office, have looked into it and return our properties. We believe in the justice system of this country and we will recover everything we own. We will go to court.”
Darboe and top officials of the party including acting secretary general Omar Jallow have held the press conference to inform journalists of their coming congress slated for December 28.
“It is typical of the iniquity of sheer dishonesty of the military dictatorship… If you claim to establish an inquiry on me, I should be entitle to see that report. It has never been made public and not a voice in the media has ever mention that,” added Darboe.
The PPP leadership said they are going on a nationwide tour following their congress.
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