By Arfang M.S. Camara
The lead counsel of the Truth Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC), Essa Faal, has reacted to accusation made by President Adama Barrow’s Political Adviser Dou Sanno in which he (Sanno) suggested that Mr. Faal snubbed Barrow to work with the oppositions.
Lead Counsel Faal who was speaking in an
interview described the accusation as “foolish”.
“The accusation from Dou Sanno, is a foolish
accusation and I just want to leave it at that.
President Barrow is the president of all Gambians including me and I will always respect everybody and treat them with the dignity that they deserve,” he further responded.
According to Mr. Faal, he did not snub President Barrow to work with any opposition, underlining that they had publicly asked for donation for the needy people and that he (Faal) will embrace any donation from both the Gambian leader and any private citizen to help Gambians.
He further stated that he was not doing the food aid distribution for politics but a charity work to help the needy.
“I am not in this for any politics. We are doing a charity work and it’s left at that and is purely charity. I am in for this work because me being there, I knowit will motivate a lot of people to want to participate and help.”
He went on to advise people to understand that there is freedom of expression in the country, and that people can go out and state their opinions.
“To go there and blatantly lie against a person is not only dishonest but it is too low as well,” he said.
Asked about the APRC man that rejected his food
aid and alleged insults, Essa Faal said that he would not respond to “a foolish ranting of someone who is craving for attention.”
“I will not sit here and dignify the foolish rantings of somebody who is craving for attention. We have entered in more than 815 homes and accessed them as vulnerable people that needed food and we gave it to them.”
“Of those households we have entered, over 250
homes belonged to pure Jolas, and those I have
seen, over 50 wore APRC symbols; either T-shirt with Jammeh or APRC boldly printed on it,” he said “If there were one, two or three people rejecting what we had to offer because they are diehard APRC supporters, we do not mine even if they infringed, it will not bother me.”
He, however, made it that there was no ulterior
motive in the charity work that he was embarking. “There cannot be any ulterior motive that is worth any sacrifice we are making. We wake up in the morning from 9 a.m. and do not come back home until mid-nigh for most of the times.” “We go for real hard labour to do what we are doing. I could have given a hefty donation and sit there. I have spent a lot of my own money doing my own things, which was my own charity; which no one knows about it before.”
According to Mr. Faal, he spent hundreds of
thousands dalasis from his own money to help many people and never had any ulterior motive.
“I am out in the public doing a work that is not my own work. This donation we are doing belongs to a group which I am just coordinating.”
“This is not Essa Faal’s work but a work of a group of people from both the U.S., Europe and within the local sector which I am only coordinating because they have trust and confident in what we are doing.”
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