By Adama Makasuba
The former lead counsel of a commission that looked into rights violations under exiled former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh who is now running for the position presidency in the upcoming December 4, has promised soldiers and police a better salary and dignified institutions when he secure power.
Speaking to electorates in Sunchu Alagie, Essa Faal, laid out a series of transformative promises including health, education and agriculture, while blaming the country’s poverty on a bad leadership.
“I am promising the police of this country and the soldiers that: the day Essa Faal becomes the president you will feel the police job we valued. We place it on top of our agenda and the job of the soldiers is part of the important jobs of this country. We will not joke with you (soldiers and police) and we will not disrespect you. We will pay good salaries in which you will have a better living condition so that no one will see you and look down upon you,” he said.
“We will not bring foreign soldiers into the country and place them over you (soldiers and police). We will not show you that we don’t care about people. The Gambian soldiers will guide this country, they will guide the president of this country,” he added.
Meanwhile, the lawyer turned politician also promised to rehabilitate the State Central Prison, Mile Two, where prisoners will be transformed into better people.
“I say to anyone taking to Mile Two prison they are violating your human rights because it is dirty, it is bad and tiny. And the food is horrible. There is no medicine and there is no medical care within the prison there is nothing. They only throw you there and forget you there.
“A small boy caught with a pack of cannabis throws you in Mile Two and someone there steals two million dalasis and (go) six months. And I will change this system and we will rehabilitate Mile Two prison to be a prison that will help to rehabilitate people. But it will no more be a place where people are taken to be destroyed,” he pledge.
“In all the discussions there are people who we always forget, they are those in prison and those in Tanka Tanka, nobody says anything about them, everyone forgets them and these people are from us. They are our brothers and sisters and they are sons and daughters. We should discuss them,” he said