The Gambian President Adama Barrow has threatened to take legal action against The Voice Newspaper, following the local newspaper’s Monday article titled “Barrow Chooses Muhammed Jah As Successor As Pres. Works on Exit Plan-Sources”.
In a strongly worded letter, dated 25th September 2024 and signed by the legal representative of President Adama Barrow and his party, the National People’s Party (NPP), Lawyer Ida D. Drameh, urged The Voice Newspaper to retract its story, failure of which, a legal suit shall be instituted against them. She described the story as false and urged the newspaper to retract in order to avoid facing legal suit.
“If the defamatory article is not permanently removed and the above undertakings are not complied within the next 24 hours of the date of this letter, we will take the necessary steps to institute legal proceedings without any further correspondence. Should it become necessary to institute legal action, our client will also be claiming from you, all legal fees involved in bringing this libel action, and any other cost that might be incurred in this regard,” Lawyer Ida D. Drameh stated.
Meanwhile, Musa Sheriff, the Managing Editor of The Voice Newspaper has reacted to the legal threat. “As professionals, we approached this story with the highest consideration of ethics and principles of journalism by contacting the mouthpiece and the deputy spokesman of the NPP, who were both quoted in the article,” he told his paper The Voice Newspaper.
Below is the letter from Lawyer Ida D. Drameh and Associates.
