By Momodou Jarju
The President of New Yundum Youth Development Association, Omar Fatty, has hinted that the police are not enemies of the people, but partners in national development.
Mr. Fatty made the remarks while speaking recently on the sideline of the low-key inauguration ceremony of the new construction of a police traffic post at New Yundum.
“We are all Gambians; is only Gambia we have. The police are not our enemies; they are our partners in development,” he said.
Mr. Fatty and fellow youths in New Yundum yoke together and build a police traffic post in their community. About D250, 000 was spent on the construction of the traffic post which started in late 2018 and completed this year.
According to the youth leader, their intention is to help the government’s strive to develop the country, adding that the country cannot develop without security.
So to complement the efforts of the government, Mr. Fatty said the youths in the community put their heads together and decided to build something where the police can have a place to rest or stay to effectively executive their jobs.
“So we reached out to community elders, the Alkalo, the Imam and all the village elders and then they gave us the go-ahead to do it. It all started from our own pockets. We normally contribute, do fundraising, we go out to reach some of our elders, good people in our village and they give us some donations. That is where we started everything until today this is where we are,” Mr. Fatty said.
Nonetheless, part of the reason for the construction of the police traffic post at their community, Mr. Fatty added, was they were experiencing a lot of accidents along the highway.
This also motivated them to construct the police traffic post to remedy the rise in road accidents around their community.
Youth leader Fatty, also seized the opportunity to encourage Gambian youths to involve in these types of initiative rather than sitting doing nothing or waiting to travel abroad and start doing something for their country.
“Youths, this is what we can do. We don’t have to sit and wait to go to Europe or to go to somewhere in order to do something for your country. None of us here have travelled even up to Senegal, but we have tried to build this thing and today it is here and it is going to benefit lot of people not only in our community, but the whole country because this is a high way that everybody use,” Mr. Fatty said.
