How fast time flies especially when one is in a good company. Alas! Another Presidential meet the people tour is just lurking somewhere near the corner.
President Adama Barrow will Monday cross over to the North Bank Region to kick-start a whole-nation meeting of the masses in fulfillment of a constitutional requirement, obliging him to physically reach out once a year.
Meet The People Tour is one of those rare moments, providing the opportunity for the governed to come face to face with the governor. To put it differently, it enables citizens to meet and associate with their leader in a unique fashion.
An opportunity of a year time, Meet The People Tour is not, therefore, to be squandered.
Coming just under a year before Gambians go to the polls to elect their president, resistance to any temptations of cashing in on the tour to feather one’s political nest would be commendable. It would be enviable. It would be, without any gainsaying, well worth it to use the tour for what it is.
There is no denying that President Barrow will be meeting Gambians with mouths full of questions about insecurity, unemployment, infrastructural deficit, water stresses, irregular migration, perceived official corruption, the groundnut trade, land tensions, fish woes, cost of living among a caboodle of problems in need of quick fix.
Consequently, anything that will relegate these mounting public concerns to the backseat cannot be excused.
We, therefore, urge President Barrow to bear in mind that this important engagement of his transcends any parochial political consideration and that he should capitalize on it to enlighten himself more on the state of affairs in his country rather than transforming it into jamborees of politics.
