Basiru Gassama, former APRC candidate in the Old Bakau Ward by-election, has debunked Foroyaa’s “petty and abusive-style” coverage of his testimony in the just transferred trial of Fatou Jaw Manneh, a journalist, who has been standing trial on charges of sedition.

Mr. Gassama walked into the Daily Observer offices yesterday and exposed what he described as Foroyaa’s calculated attempt to defame and undermine his personality. He slammed the story in the June 27-28 edition (Fatou Jaw Manneh’s trial, witness cross examined) of Foroyaa as beneath the level of elementary journalism, saying “the writer, who has a history of losing the parliamentary election in Central Baddibu under NADD’s ticket, is not fit to cover the proceedings of the court”. Bass, as fondly called observed that the author failed to stick to the tenets of this noble profession.

According to him, the author’s orientation was spattered in most of the paragraphs of the article and this compelled him to question his impartiality and fairness as a Foroyaa journalist.

Commenting on the article, Mr. Gassama pointed out that in the third paragraph of the article, the author in the fourth sentence wrote: “During cross examination, the Defense Counsel Lamin Jobarteh asked the accused whether he has travelled to Basse”. Mr. Gassama said the author, who referred to him as the accused instead of prosecution witness, could not distinguish between the “basic difference between an accused and a witness. This makes me to doubt his competence as a journalist”.

He also diagnosed the fourth paragraph, which read: “At that point, Mr. Gassama was sweating from head downwards until his green gown (Kaftan) was soaked with sweat. He was turning about in the witness box until he knocked down the two holy books (Bible and the Qur’an) on the floor and he kept on shouting”. He then commented: “What does the author and Foroyaa mean by sweating from head down until his green gown (Kaftan) was soaked with sweat? What relevance does this have with the evidence before the court? The author exposed his political agenda by depicting me as have been in a green kaftan. The accused person was wearing a yellow dress and the following day, she was in white. Why didn’t he mention that in his half-baked story? If the defense counsel ask annoying and provocative questions that I think were irrelevant to the case, it is natural for me to shout. As a journalist, you are under obligation to stick to the relevant issues and not petty things that have no place in the newsroom and even the court room.”

 “It is a phony construct that I knocked down holy books. The books were not properly placed and this was why they had to be properly placed by the court. And one begins to wonder what has this got to do with the case,” he fumed.

Mr. Gassama stressed that he has nothing against Ms Fatou Jaw Manneh, adding that he appeared in court to testify about what he know about The Gambia’s democracy and development under the leadership of President Yahya Jammeh.

However, he advised Foroyaa to retrain its journalist and stick to the very foundations that make the profession noble and enviable. “The greatest challenges facing Gambian journalism are the mixture of politics with journalism and the presence of some ill-trained individuals who are driven by their personal agenda and hatred,” he said.

The Sunbeach Hotel Security Chief, Gassama, said he has testified in the 1982 trial of SM Dibba and six others, in which prominent lawyers, such as Ousainou Darboe and Antouman represented the accused persons. He then concluded: “I have served the intelligence officer-in-charge of URD and NBD under the National Security Service, before I was redeployed as the intelligence office-in-charge of the hotel industry. I am the public relations officer of the security chiefs of all the hotels in The Gambia. I have several accomplishments. If Foroyaa and its politician journalist think that they can destroy my reputation, then they must be wallowing in whimsical day-dreaming.”