By Tabora Bojang
Veteran educationist and founding father of the All People’s Party (APP) Dr Gumbo Touray has insisted that his party does not endorse Sobeyaa leader Essa Faal’s alliance with the ruling National People’s Party of President Barrow.
He stated that an alliance with the ruling party which APP seeks to replace goes contrary to the party’s principles, ideas and viewpoint which informed its coming together with Faal. The APP merged with Sobeyaa and renamed their alliance APP-Sobeyaa and Essa Faal was endorsed as its standard bearer in December 2024 to challenge the incumbent Adama Barrow in the 2026 presidential election. Faal has now agreed to join Barrow.
In an audio obtained by The Standard, Dr Touray described Faal’s move to join Barrow as “shameful” stating that APP is not and will never be part of any alliance to endorse the incumbent. He explained that APP was founded with a strong conviction to change the state of affairs, take over governance of the country, institute reforms, distribute resources equally to the benefit of all Gambians and unite all tribes of The Gambia.
He said successive APP leaders who took over from him including Dr Bai Biran Jagne and Ebou Gaye maintained these principles and ideals despite the challenges they faced. “After facing a series of challenges, we opted to join forces with another party and we chose Essa Faal due to the belief and confidence we had in him. But he did not accord us the respect and the dignity we deserved. As the founding father of APP, Essa never picked up his telephone to call or share greetings. We never speak. But now that he took the decision to join Adama Barrow on his personal volition, we are calling it off with him. Let him go alone. We in the APP are not part of it today and we will not be part of it tomorrow,” Touray said.
He said APP will mobilise its regional chairpersons and broader support base to stand on their own and continue to run the affairs of the party as they have been doing. He urged supporters to support the ongoing efforts by a certain “Sir Jackal” and a “Mr Kebbeh” to revive the party and maintain its principles and objectives.