Marzouk Al-Kharafi, the son of the lateKuwaiti business tycoon, Mohammed Al-Kharafi, has written to the Gambian leader, His Excellency, Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, thanking him for the great honour bestowed upon him during His Excellency’s birthday celebration party.

The letter reads:

Once again, may I extend my appreciation and gratitude to Your Excellency for your warm welcome and for the great honour you bestowed upon me during your Excellency’s birthday celebration party. This made me very proud and made me feel like part of your Excellency’s family.

Furthermore, I also extend my appreciation and gratitude for your Excellency’s understanding and directives to the Government representatives to address and resolve our problems and concern as raised in my letter to your Excellency dated 24th May, 2012.

Your Excellency, we will pray to Almighty Allah to bless you and your wonderful family with good health, long life and wisdom and to continue to guide your nation and its people in fulfilling your dreams and hopes for the good of the Gambia. Please accept, your Excellency, the assurance of my warmest and highest esteem.

Marzouk Al-kharafi

................................

In another development, the president of the Republic also received a congratulatory messages on hisrecent re-election victory.

The message reads:

Permit me, Your Excellency, the President of the Republic of The Gambia and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Sheikh Prof. Alhaji Dr. Yahya AJJ Jammeh to congratulate you and the APRC party on the successful and peaceful conduct of the November 24th 2011 presidential election and the landslide and unprecedented victory that you won.

Your victory is not only for you, your party and the good people of The Gambia, but also for democracy which all are yearning for in the present global continuum.It was a victory won on a clean bill of proof to the whole world that there is still somewhere in Africa where a free, fair and peaceful election for a peaceful change of government in a transparent democracy, can be realized or attained, contrary to the Western World impression that Africa is a continent of election crises, where peace can never reign as far as it is on election issue.

As a Political Scientist and an international relations scholar, I delight so much in this laudable achievement, and my submissions on elections in The Gambia corroborate with the Chief Justice of the Gambia’s own view, Justice Emmanuel Agim, that the rest of the world, not even only our other African brothers, should emulate Gambia’s electoral system.This is indeed a true sir.

I join the academic communities world-wide particularly, the social scientists, election experts and analysts, to wish you a successful tenure and statesmanship career as you lead us with your new mandate.You have done Africa proud, you have made the black race proud, you made the entire humanity proud.Indeed, you made democracy proud.

I also congratulate your Excellency on the successful inauguration for your fourth term mandate, held at the independence stadium on the 19th January 2012.The massive turnouts of Gambians and non-Gambians home and abroad on that day and the cream of eminent personalities and statesmen that graced the august occasion was a clear demonstration and manifestation of the love of people for your sterling qualities, charismatic astuteness, unprecedented growth and development pragmatism, visionary-disciplined and commitment to duty and hard work.May Almighty God continue to enrich you the more with wisdom and knowledge.

May he be your guide and director in serving the nation and the entire Africa.You are a true Pan-Africanist of the twenty-first century.Ride on our President.We are proud of your work. We will continue to pray for you.

Felix Oyejide Omotosho

Lecturer, UTG