By Omar Bah
The Youth for Change and Development (YCD), a political group which joined the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) last year, has announced they are leaving to form their own party.
Last October, accompanied by over two hundred of his supporters, the YCD founder, Buba Bojang, met President Adama Barrow at Mankamang Kunda to officially announce his reasons for joining the NPP.
But speaking to The Standard yesterday, Mr Bojang said: “We want to inform all our members that we have renounce support and partnership with the ruling National Peoples Party. We apologise to all our supporters who left everything they were doing to join us at Mankamang Kunda last year to officially announce our partnership with the president.”
He said the idea was to work with the NPP based on shared ideologies and ideas that would propel the development of this country but they have realized that “instead of showing interest in what they brought on the table, the NPP want to take them for a ride just like they do with other political parties and their leaders.”
“We refused to be used as political tools just to attend events and rallies that would not make any difference to the plight of Gambians. We are leaving not because we were not engaged at all but the engagements weren’t what we expected. Imagine the NPP sending us an invitation to attend President Barrow’s Book Launch at the Statehouse under the current circumstances of our country. So, we felt that they are not serious with the issues that matter and it would not make sense to continue working with people who don’t border about the issues that matter to the people they serve,” he said.
He revealed that the NPP had offered to include him in the party executive but he refused because he is not interested in positions.
Next move
“We now want to focus on forming our own party – we are now almost done with the manifesto and we have collected over sixteen thousand voters’ cards to register the party in the coming weeks. We have also already gotten a name which we will disclose very soon,” he said.
Bojang said his movement has dispatched teams across the country to mobilise more support and hold consultations with Gambians ahead of the registration of the political party.
