“What Gambians want now is a youthful government, a young president,” he echoed. “We need a president who is educated. You want a president whom when you send to England, you would not be sending a watchman but someone with knowledge. If they speak, he speaks, and not if they speak, we spoke.”
He posited that many Gambian intellectuals and experts are working outside the country because there is no space in the country. According to him, some people who do not have any knowledge are the ones holding power so firmly that they do not want to leave. “So, they hold power just like that. That is why I entered politics. I want to cut that down so that the knowledgeable ones can come back to the country and the youths will realise themselves.”
“Now you are paying school fees for your a child for 12 years; and he or she would finish school, but he or she cannot even get a job. Even if he or she gets a work, it is to become a soldier or police, which pays D1,500 or D1,800. Even a housemaid’s salary of D4,500 in Banjul is way better.”
“If I take this country, when I educate the youths after 8 years, 10 years, they would earn money till their hands would be cut or wounded with money. You pay school fees for 8 to 10 years, he finishes school and he is paid D1,500. This is a big problem,” he disclosed to the Berending crowd.
On education, he cited the Gambia College as an example where people would pay tuition for about two or three years and upon completion, they are paid little money.
He affrmed that this would be a thing of the past in an administration he heads.
