By: Lamin B. Darboe
The senior Civic education officer at the National Council for Civic Education (NCCE) explained to the community of Farafenni that power to entrust the responsibility of leadership to our leaders belongs to Gambian people.
- Ansumana Yarboe made this statement on Thursday at Farafenni town as part of the NCCE, TANGO and UNDEF ongoing community sensitization within the communities of North Bank and Lower River Regions respectively.
The overall objective of the sensitization according to Mr. Yarboe is to enhance the awareness and understanding of Democracy, Rule of Law, and Civic Rights and Duties of citizens as well as promote political pluralism, tolerance and peaceful coexistence within communities.
“As Gambians we need to entrust our responsibility to someone we think will fight for us when it comes national issues as well as to also know the system of our Government so to make them accountable to the deeds in all sectors,” Yarboe urged Badibunkas.
He explained to the Badibunkas as citizens of this country, they should not only concentrate on business but instead they focus their attention to their rights as enshrine in the Gambian constitution by accounting their elected leaders like the President, NAMs, Councilors, Chairmen just to mention few.
He said there are lots of misunderstandings and misrepresentation of what democracy is all about adding that Gambians tend to abuse democracy now a days, noting that there are also lots of problems within the communities and neighbors as a result of people not having the know-how of what democracy is all about.
Mr. Yarboe pointed out that it is evident that the Gambia has suffered a lot from the past two decades, saying there were a lot of abuse of human rights, lack of democracy and poor governance which necessitated them to come together to initiate the project to reach out to Gambians across the country and sensitize them to understand what democracy is.
“Democracy guarantees rights but there are no absolute rights, rights goes with responsibilities and people should take those responsibilities seriously”, he stated, saying people need to understand that rights have a limitation,” Mr. Yarboe informed Farafenni community.
He called on people of the area to respect others the way they want others to respect them in order to ensure that they live together in peace, adding that there are a lot of tension and divisions in communities as a result of politics.
He stated that the sensitization campaign is part of activities of a two year project entitled, ‘Strengthening Human Rights and Good Governance in the Gambia’ otherwise called the ‘Democracy Project’ funded by the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF).
The first segment of the community sensitization campaign was held in Panchang, Upper Saloum, and Central River Region-North where the project was lunched. Meetings were also held in URR.