By Mama A. Touray
One of the opposition leaders, Lamin Bojang, has said it is only youths of this country that can make change in the upcoming December 2021 presidential election, as he urged the youths to go get their voter’s cards and effect change in the country.
The Alliance for National Reorientation and Development (ANRD) made the call after getting his voter’s card in his hometown Brufut at the weekend.
“The young people, for some reasons have given up on this country, and to have them on their massive numbers to come and register depends on how much they are been sensitized. If youths want to change this country and play any active role in politics in this country, then they should try to get a voter’s cards because that card will translate their quarries into actions,” he said.
He emphasised on the importance of the voter’s card saying the voter’s card is important because it is a moment for Gambians to play an active role in the country’s political spectrum, and “I am urging and telling the young people to come, register because the country belongs to us.”
Mr Bojang bemoaned that the youths in the country are not registering as expected “because they are not involved in nation building and are not encouraged to participate in nation building,” while he reminded them that “actors in the 2021 presidential election are different so let youths come out and register.”
Meanwhile, he called on the Independent Electoral Commission to extend the voter registration process.
“The duration of the voter registration is too small and I think the IEC is trying to work on that because what happens right now is that with the statistics we are seeing, I don’t know if its official but what we are told is that they have registered up to 500,000 people and this sends the signal that the number of people registered still falls beyond expectation,” he said.
He added: “They expected a number that is larger than this but in three weeks if five hundred thousand people register and you want to close the registration 11th July, mathematically it can’t register the entire population so I’m urging the independent electoral commission to extend the registration period. We have seen the problems that the country is facing in solving that we should get our voter’s cards to play an active role in politics.”
