‘President has many things in store for youths’

By Mafugi Ceesay The youth adviser to President Adama Barrow, Musa Saidy-Jeng has told The Standard in an exclusive that the president has many things in store for the youths of the country. Jeng called on the youths to rally behind President Barrow who he said has the heart to make The Gambia a better place for the younger generations. He commended the youths for their role in the collective battle that defeated the dictator. Reacting to critics who labelled him a political nobody, Jeng asked about the whereabouts of such critics in the past 22 years during the fight against the dictatorship. “Did they run out of the country or were they hiding and concealed in their shells all in fear for their lives, properties or positions that they could not see, even hear or know their heroes and the sacrifices we have undergone to salvage the country?” He said he has the right as one of the founding fathers and the presidential youth adviser to defend the truth and advise the president on matters affecting the coalition government. Jeng admitted that the fight against the dictator was a collective enterprise, but that “contributions differ greatly in terms of volume and degree”. He said: “Some only went to exercise their civil rights and voted for the coalition and some others made non-life threatening contributions while others went the extra miles to the degree of the supreme sacrifice – giving their lives.” Jeng said as a founding member of Coalition 2016, he toiled and put his life and those of his family alongside President Barrow and his family, to defeat Jammeh while preening today as the most outspoken critics and faux heroes “were nowhere to be seen or heard”. “Who can better advise the president than I who provided proposals on alliance building that was debated and adopted at the Interparty Committee for opposition unification, the nucleus of Coalition 2016, which eventually culminated into the coalition agreement?” Jeng questioned. He said he has displayed “the highest political maturity and expertise considering the magnitude of insecurity when he voluntarily led the presidential and parliamentary campaign meetings as chairman, manager, controller and master of ceremony amid heightened political tensions and Jammeh’s reign of terror perpetrated by the Junglers.”]]>