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Momodou
Denmark
11644 Posts |
 Posted - 03 Apr 2007 : 15:24:42
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FOCUS ON POLITICS
PAP CHEYASSIN SECKA, N.L.P LEADER SPEAKS
With Suwaibou Touray
Continued from: http://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3429
We have been focusing on the history of the Gambia from pre-independence to post independence era. In the last issue we have focused on Mr. M.E Jallow, a Trade Unionist, who had participated in the drafting of the new labour Act for the Gambia in 1990. Earlier on, we were engaged in analyzing the economic situation between 1970 to 1975. In this issue, we would want to focus on the N.L.P in 1975 before we go into the show down between the P.P.P and the N.C.P in 1977 elections because, as you can see, these were the three parties struggling to win the hearts and minds of the Gambian electorate during the period.
Mr. Pap Cheyassin Secka, a barrister at Law, and five other Gambians, decided to found a new political party and which coincided with the anniversary of the death of Kwame Nkrumah on the 17th April 1975. This was only few months before Mr. Sheriff .M. Dibba's removal from office, and only two months before a general strike of 26 July 1975. So as you can see, the politics of the period was charged with a lot of sentiments. This was why there was the belief or rumour that Mr. Dibba was part of a group of people building a new party.
According to Pap Cheyassin, the party already had branches in all the 35 constituencies. According to the Gambia Outlook, Mr. Secka travelled by bus and had a mass rally at Basse at the Sami cinema hall on the 23rd August 1975. The Outlook says Mr. Secka knew about the tour of Kebba Leigh and eleven others who went before him because the Basse Youths who approached them had informed him about it. According to the outlook the youths were very unhappy because they could not get information from radio Gambia which could not reach URD at that time. They felt alienated.
Mr. Secka gave a speech which impressed many young people at the Sami cinema hall. He went as thus after greetings; "What the country needs now is to put men not half men who would curry favors, put them together; let them work, and you will see miracles. This is the challenge we are facing". There was applause from the crowd.
Mr. Secka went on to deplore the slow pace of development, roads, schools, etc., and said the people who are given the task to do work did not do it, so he said "so you need to give the task to new people, not necessarily me, there should not be any mystification about it" he stressed. There was applause from the crowd.
He continued "that if you believed that this country should remain this way and you are lucky to have a president called Sir Dawda Jawara who has given us peace and tranquility to be starving half the time, never have any work to do; don't go to school; no hospital to treat us; gives internal peace and are satisfied with that peace, that is your problem. There was murmuring and claps. Mr. Secka said that for him he found that situation to be intolerable and asserted that "if I have got to go to jail for saying so, I opt to go then."
Mr. Secka had to address the psychological threat of the information he has received, and went on "And if Kebba Leigh and eleven others were ordered in three landrovers to go to the country to tell us not to listen to the reasons why a new party is born, then it is very serious, it is an insult."
According to the Outlook, Mr. Secka claimed that the failure of Mr. Kebba Leigh's tour was what motivated the president's unprecedented tour of the country which has never occurred; that this was the first time the president was confronted with an ideology and he said, "this will make the president work, to serve us, and to make his task.
Mr. Secka went on to assert that after they had reviewed the historical evolution of our political process, they came to the conclusion that we failed because we allowed other people to decide for us things that we should decide for ourselves.
He also added that our priorities were misled; that we must reconstitute ourselves again as a Nation, find out where we went wrong and our mistakes and move on. According to him, nothing stops us from doing that. He also said, "I believe that the difference we had with animals is, we sleep in houses and they sleep in open space at night."
Mr. Secka, according to outlook, called on the people not to sit down and weep; that it is for us to behave like men; that it is not about positions or even whether they were there when it happened; that it is only important that they bear witness to the fact that unless we re-organise ourselves on a new and entirely new base, there was no way we could survive as a nation.
Mr. Secka also counseled on the "I don't care" attitude and said that won't work and the "it is not my problem" attitude won't also do, because as he emphasised, if you see that Cheyassin went crazy, don't join Jawara, simply leave Cheyassin alone and stay with the new organization which is the solution. He advised. "You don't go crazy and join Jawara, remove Cheyassin and let the country move." He also called on people not to worship our heroes, but worship them after they died. "When they are alive, let us criticize them, let us make them work. When they are dead, we can tell them and their children how good they were." And as he said the people would then emulate them but warned that so long as they are alive, let us see them, talk to them, react to them as human beings that they are. He then ended his speech and there was considerable applause.
Mr. Secka came back from the tour quite satisfied. They held a meeting at Odeon Cinema, in Banjul, on the 28th September 1975, where a coordinating committee was selected comprising the following; Chairman, Pap Cheyassin Secka, Vice Chairman, Mr. Sam Sillah, Publicity Secretary, Mr. Allasan Ndure, Treasurer, Mr. Henry Baldeh.
At that time, Mr. Secka was said to be an interim chairman but not the leader. He said that would be decided after a party convention in December 1975. Their motto was, one Nation, one people. A committee was also drawn up to work on the constitution of the National Liberation Party.
What was not clear was whether the N.L.P was to make a tactical alliance with the NCP, like the UP. However, on 4th October 1975, the NLP held their first rally at Leman and Cotton Street and expounded on his criticism of Jawara's administration that the cost of living was going high, educational facilities inadequate, and the prevailing dissatisfaction in the entire country. Pap Cheyassin also called on the people to join the NLP Party.
See next issue on the struggle to win hearts and minds in the 1977 elections.
Continued: http://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3489
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 38/2007, 2-3 April 2007
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