“November 11 protest will go ahead if...” - COPG chairman

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By SHERIFF SAIDYKHAN

Seedy Cham, the Chairman of Coalition of Progressive Gambia (COPG) have said that the November 11 protest will go ahead as planned, if the government fail to address their ten point demands chief among which is to reduce the prices of essential commodities.

He said they will not stand down with the November 11 planned protest, unless the demands are met.

On Thursday, November 3, 2022 some executive members of Coalition for Progressive Gambia met the Director of the State Intelligence Service (SIS), the Minister of Interior and the Gambia Supreme Islamic Council for dialogue over the November 11 planned protest.

The meeting was held at the Supreme Islamic Council headquarters, MDI Road, Kanifing.

“At the meeting they said the government is ready to address our demands. They said some of our demands will be address immediately. We laid down our demands, and they have taken our demand to the President. Right now we are monitoring them, if they fail to agree with our demands we will go ahead with the protest,” he said.

He said the Inspector General of Police have initially rejected their permit to protest.

Mr. Cham, indicated that the government have promised to meet the said demands.

He added that if the government fail to address the demands, with or without permit they will exercise their fundamental rights in accordance with section 25 of the constitution of The Gambia.

“It is our fundamental right to protest. With or without a permit, we will go ahead with our protest,” he vowed.

He said among the ten point demands are; high cost of living, corruption, unemployment among others.

In his own words: “In our demands we are calling the President to act immediately before November 11 by putting in place immediate measures to reduce the prices of essential commodities especially staple food.”

COPG want the authorities to immediately constitute an independent investigation taskforce to look into the illegal opening of the special security account and the spending of the D669 million.

“We are calling on the President to further act immediately on the recent national audit report of the Banjul rehabilitation project,” reminding him about the ‘robbery’ and the scandal at the Gam Petroleum.