Karamo Jadama, a member of the famous ‘Three Years Jotna’ movement has alleged that the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mamud Jobe, Minister of Interior, Yankuba Sonko, and Minister of Information, Ebrima Sillah among several others have aided and supported the movement as they negotiated their application for a permit to hold a peaceful protest on December 16th.
Speaking in a leaked audio that made rounds on social media platforms, Jadama disclosed that his movement has now agreed to hold a peaceful protest from Sting Corner to Denton Bridge.
On Tuesday December, 10th, 2019, Three Years Jotna was granted a permit to hold a peaceful protest slated for December 16th after intense negotiations with the Security Council and Government Ministers.
The movement is calling on Gambian President Adama Barrow to honor his 2016 campaign promise of a three-year term. However, the President has since changed his mind, now stating that he will remain president until 2021, when the country holds a constitutionally sanctioned election.
“We have had a very tough meeting with the Security Council and now we have succeeded. Initially they didn’t want to give us the permit because they opted for a dialogue between us (Three Years Jotna) and Adama Barrow. They told us that dialogue is the best mechanism to solve this issue so that anything we need it can be addressed, but we declined to submit to this dialogue proposal,” said Dembo Jadama in the leaked audio.
He added: “They thought that they will be able to buy us out, but finally the Inspector General of Police and Interior Minister support us a lot. Even though Ebrima Sillah, Minister of Information did not come out directly to show his support, he was very helpful to us and this show of support gives us the conviction that all these people are fed-up with the system”.
Jadama revealed that their meeting with the Security Council was attended by five ministers, NIA Director, the IGP and all Cabinet members, disclosing that the aim of the meeting was to pressure the movement to hold a dialogue with President Adama Barrow.
“When they spoke about dialoguing with President Barrow, we told them that is not the issue that brought us there, we told them our mission is about the permit not the dialogue. We told them that the reason we applied for the permit is to affirm our position that we are going to stage a peaceful protest contrary to the misconceptions,” Jadama explained their encounter with the Security Council.
He said the decision to hold the protest from Sting Corner to Denton Bridge was reached after intense scrutiny of the potential security threats, adding that an agreement has been reached for President Adama Barrow to personally receive the movement’s petition paper on behalf of government.
