Barrow Warns
By: Momodou Justice Darboe
President Adama Barrow has warned that anyone, who violates the laws of the land, will face the music.
According to President Barrow, the time has now come for the full application of the laws.
“Nobody will give birth to a child and hate the child. If you suckle your child for three years, you wean him/her off. The cries that you can accommodate when s/he is young, you take a stick and beat him/her for those cries if the child is weaned,” President Barrow told the people of Kombo East, BrikamaNorth, and South as he addressed them on Saturday on the second leg of his Meet-The-People tour.
“During the past five years, we were lullabying the baby but five years is over now. We are now in the seventh year. What the laws dictate is what will happen. If you don’t follow the laws, you will be whipped. There is no country in the world without laws. Even in compounds, you have compound rules. People cannot behave anyhow. My friend, that cannot happen,” he added.
Meanwhile, President Adama Barrow promised that his government would build a modern hospital in Brikama to cater to the growing healthcare needs of the people.
“We want to build a hospital in Brikama and land was a problem but with consultations with the Imam, town authorities, and governor, we got land. This [hospital] will help Brikama a lot. When the World Bank proposed a hospital, I told them that Brikama needed a hospital and we would build it to benefit a lot of people. Whenever we build the hospital, we can demolish the [Brikama] health center and build a market there. This is what we want to do for Brikama,” the Gambian leader explained.
He called for unity in national development.
“What I want to tell everyone, the council, government, and authorities is that we should band together and work towards national development. When people elect you, you should cease all the hostilities and work. Do you want to continue the hostilities that you started during the electioneering period until you are elected? You will exhaust your five-year tenure of office without development,” the President said. He went on: “I can tell you that the council cannot subsist without the central government. If there is no central government, there will be no council. It’s like a calabash and gourd. You use calabash to fetch from the gourd. That’s how it is. Councils cannot build roadsand markets and provide electricity. Let them tell us who owns the market. We gave you the market. What I want to tell the council is that let them tighten their waste as Hamat said and clean the [Brikama] town first. That’s the least expected of them. No matter how worthless they are, they should be able to do that. But even the council’s gate is dirty. If you say you are going to help women at the Brikama market that cannot happen. If you look at the market, we built the shops there. We erected a storey building there and this is historic in Brikama. And we have a huge plan to build 1200 shops in that market. The one, who wants to do that for you, you should be a friend and development partner to that individual, what I want to tell the people of Brikama and Kombo is to work in concert with the NPP because the NPP will be here for a long time and even if I leave the stage, NPP will remain here. If you don’t work with NPP, you will be here for a long time. I won overwhelmingly in the West Coast Region. Despite their chest pounding and bragging, what I did to them here, I never did it to them anywhere. And even today, when we go to the polls, what I will do to them will be worse. My politics is not about talk but work.”
Meanwhile, President Barrow said the Justice Ministry is working on a bill to deter human traffickers.
He added: “My Minister of Justice is working on a bill to robustly and adequately deal with the Backway issue. We are coming up with harsh punishments for traffickers. We will lock them up and throw the key at the sea. I will not allow anyone to destroy the future of this country and Gambia’s foundation as development hinges on them[youths]. And if you have somebody destroying them[youths], I will tighten my waist [to combat them] and I want everyone to help so we can eradicate it [Backway].”
He told the meeting that the government has rebaptized the National Development Plan (NDP) to YIRIWA to better encapsulate and highlight its vision for national development.
“We will build 200km of roads in the West Coast Region. Works have started on the Gunjur and Sanyang beach roads. Universal electricity access from 2023 to 2027 is goal one of the Yiriwablueprint. Ports expansion is the second goal as we want the port facility to accommodate any kind of ship and the expansion will reduce the waiting time and consequently the demurrage charges. This will reflect favorably on the prices of goods,” the President disclosed. “We will also rejuvenate river transport from here to Basse. We had Lady Wright and Lady Chilel and we want to replicate the same. We are on course to transform the economy into a digital economy and ensure universal health coverage. In January, we will inaugurate five modern hospitals. We will also promote education, especially Science and technology to prepare engineers on our home turf. These are all part of our Yiriwa program,” he stated.