To err is human and the only people who don’t make mistakes are those doing nothing. To that effect we profoundly apologize for a story we carried this morning captioned “Ousman Jammeh a convicted felon rewarded with Public Service” detailing that former Secretary General Ousman Jammeh who was convicted of negligence and abuse of office and sentence to three years before being pardoned by Jammeh was reappointed as Director of Agriculture.
This story was reported in error after we read a story on the point newspaper and contacted few sources regarding the validity of the story. We wanted to report on it to highlight some of the lessons many Gambians failed to learn after being appointed, fired and arrested by the Jammeh regime. Despite our reservations and lack of confidence in the judiciary in Gambia, we thought that the way Ousman Jammeh’s case was expedited and how he was convicted was a gross disservice to him and our country. For such a person to return to work for the same man who humiliated him was worth highlighting. It turns out we got the wrong Ousman Jammeh appointed as Director of Agriculture and we apologize to our readers, Ousman and his Family for the error.
To our mentors and credible readers we appreciate drawing our quick attention to the story. To over a thousand people who read the story within hours, we apologize for this error and thank you for reading Gainako; you deserve better. We will continue to strife to bring you the most credible stories with diligence, caution and humility.
We have learned from credible sources that Ousman Jammeh remains in Gambia as a private citizen since his pardon from prison. He has reportedly being pursued by the Jammeh government to return to work for him but he has not accepted any offers. One source said to us “Ousman is a good man and I doubt he will ever go back to work for the Jammeh regime” Again this error is deeply regrettable.
On behalf of Gainako editorial team