Hon. Yahya Sanyang (Esq.)
Hon. Yahya Sanyang (Esq.)
I recently embarked on a series of prison visits with my pupil master for client conferencing as we prepare to mount defenses for various cases in the courts of The Gambia. These visits, however, left me profoundly disturbed and grief-stricken. While incarceration is undoubtedly necessary in certain circumstances, the sheer number of young people I encountered behind bars is nothing short of a national tragedy under the NPP and Barrow administration. We are, indeed, losing a generation.
The faces I saw were young teenagers, barely out of childhood, whose futures had been tragically derailed due to the Barrow administration’s lack of coherent youth empowerment initiatives and a speedy justice delivery system. The charges against them varied, ranging from petty theft and drug possession to assault and other related offenses.
In speaking with many of these young individuals, the underlying factors were strikingly similar: poverty, lack of education, broken families, and a desperate search for meaning and belonging in a society that has failed them. This failure can be attributed to the inefficiencies of the NPP government, which has left 77 percent of Gambians disapproving of their administration and stating that “the country is headed in the wrong direction.”
Let me be clear: these young people are not inherently bad. Rather, they are products of their environment, victims of systemic failures perpetuated by the Barrow administration. Our education system is another critical area of concern. It is not adequately preparing young people for the realities of the job market. Poverty-stricken families, left hopeless under the Barrow administration, are forcing children into desperate measures. The allure of easy money often proves too tempting for some, offering a false sense of community and purpose that the NPP government has failed to provide.
Instead of nurturing these young minds, the NPP government is warehousing them in detention centers, denying them a speedy justice delivery system, and turning them into hardened criminals. Some of these detainees shared with me that they had appeared before a court only once during their more than a year of detention.
To address this crisis, I strongly urge lawyers to visit the remand wings of our prisons and take on pro bono cases to ensure detainees have access to justice. Prison, while necessary for certain offenses, should be a place of rehabilitation, not a breeding ground for further criminality. Yet for many of these detainees, their incarceration experience will only marginalize them further, making reintegration into society even more difficult.
We cannot afford to continue down this destructive path. We must invest in our youth. This is precisely what the UDP envisions in its five-point blueprint development agenda for The Gambia. A UDP government will:
-Strengthen the education system.
-Empower our agricultural sector and our local economy.
-Address poverty comprehensively.
-Invest in youth programs to engage young people and reduce crime rates.
-Reform the justice system to ensure a speedy and efficient justice delivery process.
A UDP government will not prioritize any tribe, interest group, or political party. Our mission is to create a better and more united Gambia capable of providing equal opportunities for all citizens, as our party leader emphasized during the recent congress.
A vote for the UDP in 2026 is for a better Gambia, a vision overdue for over 50 years. Let us seize this opportunity to secure the future of our nation.