Shyster solicitor, Almamy Taal dropped a bombshell recently when he revealed, in an interview with Standard Newspaper, that he is the new spokesman of the United Democratic Party (UDP) effective February this year.
This development caught many by surprise, not least because of his membership of UDP or his appointment as Spin Doctor but given that he was the moderator in the KMC mayoral debate where UDP candidate Talib Bensouda took part.
Almamy, who earns his supper lecturing about ethics, integrity, and values; apparently has none of those. He deceitfully fooled the organisers into believing that he's politically independent and not affiliated to any political party. His appointment as moderator was not objected to by any of the unsuspecting participants, as they too were not in the loop. What people frowned upon is that, as someone who knows a thing or two about ethics and conflict of interest, he should have disclosed his appointment as the new spokesman of UDP to the organisers. Had he done that they (organisers) would have replaced him immediately. Or he could have simply recused himself from moderating duties citing conflict of interest.
UDP pulled Rohey Lowe out of Eye Africa and Kerr Fatou debates. The party surrogates on social media quipped that it is not due to her perceived incompetence and inability to express herself in English, but rather tactical and calculating as debates are not the best way to reach out to the electorates. They went on to say that Talib too wouldn't participate in any debate, this was confirmed by his absence on Kerr Fatou's special mayoral session.
Interestingly, Mr. Bensouda showed up at the IVLP Mayoral Debate on March 22 to the surprise of many. In the wake of Mr. Taal's appointment being made public, there are some people who believe that he was the one who dragged Talib out of his mum's laps to come and participate. One of the independent candidates who took part in the debate, Assan Martin, in a radio interview recently alleged that there is even a possibility that his 'learned friend' Almamy Taal supplied Talib with questions ahead of the debate.
What Mr. Martin alleges could well be true as we all know party supporters look out for each other. I have seen UDP supporters berated Hon Mama Kandeh for his (allegedly) inferior academic credentials or lack of it, now made 360 U-turn by saying having University degrees and the ability to express oneself in English is not a benchmark for good leadership. All this twaddle is due to the fact that they presented a candidate who is well below their so-called high standard. They are in fact downplaying the importance of education. My take is if education isn't important anymore, we should close the University of the Gambia, Gambia College, GTTI, MDI etc.
All of a sudden, this shoddy solicitor now UDP spokesman is ironically in need of a spokesperson to defend him as a result of the scathing attack he came under for his opportunistic and unprofessional move. His move could be a subject of a legal tussle between debate organisers and other candidates. Any candidate who participated in that debate and went on to lose to Talib could sue the organisers for staging a sham debate which is skewed in favour of Talib from the outset.
The author is a keen follower of Gambian politics