By: Nyima Sillah
Essa Njie, a Political Lecturer at the University of the Gambia said 2022 was a waste for the government in terms of bringing back reforms to life.
“We know that in 2016 President Adama Barrow was elected to help us embark on legal institutional reforms those reforms have not been realized especially the legal reforms.
“We also know that the old electoral laws in the previous regime are still here and the Barrow government has not done much about these things,” Njie told The Voice in an exclusive interview yesterday.
The r Political Lecture further contended that the government of Adama Barrow has not done much in ensuring that there are legal reforms in the country as well as civil servant reform as promised by his government.
“We have not seen any efforts on the part of the government to reform the civil service to become once more an efficient, effective civil servant to be a role model to other African countries as it used to be in Jawara’s regime,” he observed.
Mr. Njie also pointed out that the freedom of expression to which the citizens are entitled is still regressive under the regime of President Barrow due to the repressive media laws and Information Act which have suppressed the citizens to exercise their rights to freedom of expression.
On the issue of corruption, Njie blasted the government for not doing an effort to fight corruption since the government of President Adama Barrow came to power in 2016.
“With all the scandals that we hear in this country, the government has not convicted and we still don’t have the anti-corruption law in place. This shows that the government is not committed to fighting corruption which is a big failure,” he argued.
Political Lecturer Njie described the current police brutality on political opponents and ordinary citizens as a sign of the country returning to “dictatorship.”