This question was posed to Halifa Sallah.
According to him, the sovereignty of the republic and the sovereign people and their properties must be defended by a well-trained army that is well educated and nurtured in the values of the republic.
In fact, in a republic, not only do you need an army to defend the republic, in peace time the army would serve as the most disciplined workforce of the country. Its navy would own fishing vessels to be able to earn income and sustained vessels for coastal protection.
Halifa Sallah went on to say that the regular army will have a university and technical institutions to conduct research and train members of the army in engineering, medical science and other pursuits in order have an engineering corps that will be well equipped to build roads, bridges, hospitals and other government institutions. It will have a metal and fabrication corps to produce machines, spare parts for farming in a mechanized way. It can have an information technology corps, energy generation and so on and so forth. All those people in the armed forces will not only be properly remunerated and housed but will become reservists at the end of their term of service to be easily absorbed into other productive sectors of Gambian society or be given the necessary funds to establish their own productive base for self-determined and self-reliant development.
He pointed out that the lack of vision of the governments of the first and second republics and the current government has rendered those in uniform not to have a clear vision of what an army of a republic is all about.
In his view, in a genuine republic, the armed forces would serve as the people in uniform and in case of external threat, the armed forces will work with civil defence forces to protect the nation.
In short, all graduates of free and compulsory twelve-year education will go into national service that would require training in civil and security service as well as to acquire skills in any technical service of one’s choice.
Halifa Sallah added: “When I was a National Assembly member, the committee on defence and security, at a time when the chair was indisposed and I acted as chair to preside over a challenge faced by the armed forces of The Gambia, it came to notice of the committee that there was feet dragging to get the necessary equipment to enable the army to be qualified for peace keeping in the Central African Republic after their peace mission in Darfur came to an end. The former Chief of Defence Staff Drammeh would confirm the initiative taken by the committee to facilitate a speedy response that made it possible for the army not to lose such an opportunity.
“I therefore hope that any future government of The Gambia would implement what is in the PDOIS Manifesto on how our security and law enforcement institutions would become services for the sovereign republic and the sovereign people. In fact, I have in civic education and lectures given to members of the armed forces that the first and second republics made a blunder by referring to them as armed forces and police forces instead of security service. It is not surprising that armed forces and security forces are now in use.
“The future of our security services is to transform them into instruments for the protection of national and human security so that they will be seen as the people in uniform and not as an instrument of coercion by the people. This is what is meant to build a sovereign republic. This is verdict of truth and common sense and it is incontrovertible.”
