By Fatou Sillah
Talib Ahmed Bensouda, Mayor of the Kanifing Municipal Council and leader of the United Movement for Change (UMC), stated in a recent interview that a lack of government support is driving many Gambian youths into criminal activity or prompting them to seek opportunities abroad through irregular migration.
Speaking on the Dialectic Space podcast with Ebrima Sonko, Bensouda described the situation as a consequence of systemic neglect. “There is no support, I mean, there is no help, so the youths are traumatized. Many of them face two options: either you go into criminality, or you leave and go ‘back way.’ For the majority of youths, that’s the reality,” he said.
Bensouda highlighted the difficulties young Gambians face in accessing education and meaningful employment. “Very few youths are going to school, graduating, and finding meaningful employment or gainful employment, and the government has not focused on how to get youths engaged in fundamental sectors, vital sectors such as agriculture, blue-collar jobs, and apprenticeships,” he said.
The mayor also called for broader structural reforms, citing the need for constitutional reform as a foundation for meaningful change. “Gambians wanted meaningful, fundamental, transformative change, and the only way to begin that is to attack what was wrong with Gambia, and that is the fundamentals; one of the things was constitutional reform,” he said.
Bensouda criticized the administration of President Adama Barrow for failing to implement promised reforms, particularly in the civil service and security sectors. He argued that the lack of progress on these critical areas has left the country grappling with persistent challenges and stressed that future governments must prioritize addressing them.
“And our government will come in and try to do projects very quickly for political expediency. So one must understand that the fundamentals must be fixed first before you can face the problems,” Bensouda said.