OIC Secretary General Meets President Jammeh

The Daily Observer (Banjul)

Hatab Fadera

6 June 2011

The secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) Saturday afternoon met with the president of the Republic at State House.

Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who held fruitful discussions with His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, is on an eight-day working tour of African countries that takes him to The Gambia, Benin, Togo, Sierra-Leone, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, and Niger. The OIC secretary general was accompanied to the presidency by a strong delegation comprising the assistant secretary general for Economic Affairs, Ambassador Hameed Opeloyeru; the director African Affairs, Ambassador Yahaya Lawal and a host of other senior officials from the General Secretariat in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

According to a press communiqué, the tour, the third to Africa since Professor Ihsanoglu assumed duty as the secretary general of the OIC in 2005, is aimed at exploring modalities for strengthening and deepening ‘intra-OIC’ relations among the countries in Africa.

Speaking to the State House press corps in an interview shortly after his closed-door discussions with the Gambian leader, the OIC secretary general, who said this is not his first visit to The Gambia, described as frank, detailed, and thorough the meeting he had with President Jammeh. While asserting that they have very cordial and strong relations with The Gambia, Ihsanoglu said he is proud of President Jammeh’s friendship and his support to him and all his activities.

“Today we have discussed with His Excellency the president the different aspects of cooperation between The Gambia and the OIC; the potential is big in different aspects in the economy, tourism, health, infrastructure, agriculture, and so on. We also discussed different issues of the Middle East, and the next ministerial meeting at the end of this month and The Gambia’s participation in the next OIC summit hopefully that will take place next year in Egypt. I benefited a lot from the opinions, wisdom and the experience from the president,” he disclosed to journalists.

OIC 10-year Programme of Action

Asked to comment on the 10-year Programme of Action of the OIC, which came into force in 2005, Professor Ihsanoglu explained that it is the blueprint of moderation and modernisation of the Muslim World. He explained: “It has such specific targets in socio-economic development in intra-trade relations within OIC; in science and education; in moderation and fighting extremism and violence and radicalists; and we have been implementing it.” The OIC secretary general said the blueprint has called for a change of charter, indicating that they have adopted a new charter.

He added: “It [the blueprint] has asked us to adopt a new name and new emblem which suits the new vision of the OIC. It has set a target of raising intra-trade between OIC countries to 20 percent; it has asked us to establish independent human rights commission and we are about to establish this commission. It has many important programmes – eradication of contagious diseases like polio, malaria, and we are working on these. So this is an important document of the Muslim World.” Professor Ihsanoglu also said his organisation is glad that it is cooperating with the government of The Gambia for the implementation of the OIC 10-year Programme of Action.

Arab demonstrations

Asked what the OIC is doing to deal with the popular demonstrations that are sweeping across the Arab World, Professor Ihsanoglu replied that the Islamic body is following these events. He said: “We are cooperating with all stakeholders for a peaceful process of transformation of change.We do believe that according to our Islamic tradition of governance that rulers are in the service of the people and not the people in the service of the rulers. This is how it should be.”

While stating that the wind of change is blowing very strongly across the Muslim World, the OIC secretary general noted that the end results of these crises would be the need for democracy, human rights, good governance and transparency. He stressed that these are the values that Islam has taught them and this is how it should be in the modern society and modern governments as well.

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