Lamin Ceesay, national assembly member for Kiang West, has thrashed government plans to send peacekeeping troops to Sierra Leone following last year’s attempted military coup, describing the move as “very funny”.

While participating on a motion tabled by the vice president Muhammed Jallow to seek approval of parliament for the deployment, MP Ceesay lashed out at the Barrow administration for “not having trust in the Gambian military”.

The Gambia itself has been receiving regional forces since 2017 after former President Yahya Jammeh was ousted after refusing to to step down following his defeat in the 2016 presidential election.

“Sadly for me, the Gambia is a country which has undergone so many attempted coups but there was no redeployment of troops from any member states to restore peace. So, let’s not use that as a yardstick. In fact, what makes it more funny is that after eight years of political impasse, these are the men and women in uniform you cannot trust to protect your country.

“I want to emphasise that if you are to deploy your troops, you have to bestow a lot of trust in those people to be able to do that. [But] these are the people you do not trust to protect your country after eight years,” he said.

However, vice president Muhammed B.S Jallow told parliament that the “deployment is intended to contribute to the ECOWAS joint operation aimed at restoring peace, security and stability in Sierra Leone following recent attempted military coup.”

Reporting by Adama Makasuba