By Omar Bah
President Adama Barrow has said the Gambia opposition has no chance of defeating the ruling National People’s Party in the 2026 presidential election if its executives and supporters remain united.
Addressing a meeting on Thursday organised to welcome the Youth for Change and Development (YCD) to the NPP, Barrow said his party has been attracting strong solidarity from all corners of the country. He said the coming of the youth political group will add value to the party’s restructuring process.
“The opposition is giving their supporters the impression that they will remove me in 2026 as a strategy to keep them like they did in 2021. That is the kind of rhetoric they are making, but I want to tell them that it is a lie. That will not happen if we are united,” he said.
Mr Barrow said the opposition doesn’t win elections.
“What usually happens is that the ruling party makes itself lose by creating unnecessary tensions among themselves and undermining each other. If that happens, the opposition will capitalise but how can somebody who only makes noise with nothing to offer win an election?” Barrow asked.
He posited that the NPP lost the National Assembly and chairmanship elections in the West Coast Region because of its disunity.
“The West Coast Region is a very strategic place in Gambian politics and if any party wants to succeed, they need the support of West Coast, so I urge all of you to stay united, especially those in West Coast. Also, let us be honest and love our country,” he appealed.
NPP development wing
President Barrow also announced plans to establish a development wing within the NPP.
“We will establish a development wing within the NPP that will formulate its own programs and implement them. This will be implemented as a social project funded by the NPP and the implementation will be led by the party’s councillors. We believe that will differentiate us from the opposition,” he said.
He welcomed Buba Bojang and assured him that the NPP would work with his group, adding that he is impressed with the number of people who accompanied Mr Bojang to Mankamang Kunda.
The founder of Youth for Change and Development (YCD) and resident of Jambanjelly, Buba Bojang, commended the president for accepting to work with his group but insisted that they are not surrendering themselves to the NPP.
“We joined the NPP to share our ideas and programs with them to help the government achieve its development aspirations. We believe that this country cannot achieve its aspirations without strong institutions. We are not looking for positions or anything, all we want is to, through our master plan, help the government effect the needed changes,” he said.
He said the group has developed a detailed manifesto that will help the NPP connect more with the government through its policies and ideologies, which will be aligned with their plans and ideas.
“We believe that the government should not operate with policies and programs different from the NPP manifesto,” Bojang said.
He said the three hundred people who accompanied him to the president demonstrate that they have numbers and that their coming is genuine and based on the interests of the country.
“It is now left to them to embrace us, or else we will go and look elsewhere. We are not coming to surrender ourselves to the NPP.
The chance of us staying together highly depends on what happens next,” he added.
Bojang said his group wants to champion the politics of truth and accountability.
“We want this country to serve as an example for other countries, and we have the ideas to make this happen in partnership with the NPP,” he said.
He said the agreement with the NPP will revisit the ruling party’s constitution and manifesto and align it with theirs.
“We believe the president should not rely on the cabinet to design government programs when there is a political party he campaigned for and won an election. The status quo cannot continue,” he said.
He said the Coalition of 2016 failed because they had no tangible plans.
