By Lamin Cham
The newly-elected president of the Gambia Football Federation, Kemo Ceesay, has called on his former political adversaries Colonel Musa Jammeh and Sadibou Kamaso, not to shelve their manifestoes but bring them forward for a cross-fertilisation of ideas to move Gambian football forward.
Ceesay, a former finance director and long time staff of the federation won an election on Saturday scoring 41 votes against Jammeh’s 24 and Kamaso’s 12. He also managed to get his key candidates elected unopposed.
During his acceptance speech, Ceesay dragged both opponents to the podium to announce that he is prepared to work with them, adding that the easiest way to do that is to compare and align and put the best parts of their respective manifestoes in to practice.
”The election is over and work starts on Monday [today]. You are both stakeholders and strong members of the football family and this election must never change that,” he told Jammeh and Kamaso.
The new president paid tribute to the outgoing president, Lamin Bajo, for the dozen years he shepherded Gambian football.
Honourary life vice president of the GFF, businessman and diplomat, Alhaji Salifu Jaiteh, was one of the first to congratulate the new president and his team. He said he was pleased that the stakeholders heeded to his earlier advice to elect people comitted to developing the game.
Mr Jaiteh said he respects the choice of the stakeholders as demonstrated by the clear mandate given to Kemo Ceesay and his team and advised the new president to be a true servant of football and realise that Gambians reposed a lot of hope in him and his team.