The newly elected president, in a highly disputed elections, is moving quickly and unashamedly to stack the decks with regime-friendly faces. It is a blatant power grab that is brazen even by the standards of dictatorial regimes.
If there were doubters to our claim that Kaba Bajo was the regime's hand-picked candidate for the office of president of the Gambia Football Federation (GFF), there should be any now because of the blatant move by the former Minister and Ambassador under the Jammeh dictatorship to flagrantly violate the Statutes of the GFF in his first official action.
Kaba Bajo made numerous appointments that extensively expanded the membership of the Executive Committee of the GFF to include the brother of the current Minister of Youth and Sports, members of the Gambia Armed Forces and prominent political supporters of the Jammeh regime. If these appointments should stand, the regime will have total and absolute control of Gambian football.
Mr. Buba Bojang, the former presidential candidate of the GFF is contesting the constitutionality of the appointments because they contravene numerous clauses of the federation's Statutes which were enumerated in a letter to the GFF.
Kaba Bajo, meanwhile, has arrogantly refused to respond to Buba Bojang's claims and was quoted in Standard newspaper as suggesting that he has better things to do and bigger fish to fry than to respond to the charges by members of the GFF.
His reaction did not come as a surprise because Bajo's entire career is deep-rooted in a dictatorial culture of a military regime that has transformed itself into a civilian outfit but still essentially militaristic in behavior.
