By Alagie Manneh
President Adama Barrow has predicted that his successor as president will likely be someone much younger than him.
“I have said it before, even though it’s all in the hands of Allah, that I will be older than the next president [of The Gambia],” Barrow said to applause from people who came to attend his meet-the-people tour at Makkah-Farafenni in the North Bank Region.
He accordingly called for the country’s young people to support and prepare.
“Since the future belongs to the young each and every one must be ready to bring up their children such that tomorrow, they will be able to work for themselves and for their family,” he said.
He said one way of doing this is to advise young ones to abandon social media.
“They should focus on their education so that tomorrow they can have a job and self-actualise.”
He lamented that even the provision of a skills centre somewhere in Kerewan, young people refused to go there to learn useful skills.
“The centre had both carpentry and mechanic departments, but they were forced to close them down because no one went there to learn. I think we met only 10 young people who were learning hairdressing. We are not going to be discouraged though because skills doesn’t disappoint anybody and so we are planning to build big skills centres across the country because we want our children to learn skills,” he said.
Turning to politics, he said the country is in “trustful hands”.
“They are clean hands. And they are protecting the country and its resources. Then let us be careful. There are those who don’t want President Barrow. True, all cannot like you, but if they don’t like me, let them at least love their country because loving one’s country is an act of worship. So we may differ, but we must be one to develop our country,” the president said.
