By: Landing Ceesay
The speaker of the National Youth Parliament (NYP) Omar Cham, has said that the country’s road accidents need concerted efforts to be solved.
“It could be understood that this is not a one-man game, or a job of one institution to remedy the issue of road accidents. It requires concerted efforts of all of us beginning from the Ministry of Transport, down to the National Youth Parliament (NYP), the police, The National Assembly, the public and every other stakeholder that is involved in this endeavour,” Cham advocated.
He expressed this after seeing Gambia ranked among the worst countries in terms of road accidents in Africa in the World Health Organisation [WHO] ranking on road accidents a few weeks ago. A position he described as ‘very worrying’ and needs remedy from all and sundry.
Omar fondly referred to as ‘Champion Poet’ for his heroic poetic performance in the country and beyond also stated that the National Youth Parliament has registered enormous success when it comes to the campaign against road accidents; by giving people the platform to campaign against road accidents; as well as creating the opportunity to fostering road safety initiatives through various acts.
“Through these, the National Youth Parliament was able to register enormous success with regards to the road traffic Act 2008, where the issue of compulsory wearing of seat belt and helmet were included. This will go down in history as one of the most remarkable achievements ever registered by a civil society organisation. And we still live by those legendary feet with the hope of expanding the coverage and wideness of such landmarks. It is therefore paramount that we all gathered here today to take our stance in regards to road safety and put up joint efforts to make sure that we solve the problem or by worst we eradicate them to the lowest, rather as captured in the 2030 SDG agenda, whereas it is targeted ambitiously to reduce the issue of death from road traffic accidents to 50%,” he said.
Cham, therefore, called on the Ministry of Transport, the Police, National Youth Parliament, the National Assembly, the public and any other stakeholders to use concerted efforts in solving road traffic accidents in the country.
“We all know most of the accidents would occur not just because they are meant to occur but because we have one way or the other gone against the traffic rules or at least [are] going against traffic rules that would in one way or the other contribute to the worsening of the injuries or death toll that would emanate from the road traffic accidents,” Speaker Omar Cham concluded.
Meanwhile, the 18th of May, 2021 the National Youth Parliament (NYP) organised a National Youth road safety forum on the theme: “Making a clarion call for action to remedy the National Road Safety Crisis”. The event was graced by stakeholders on road safety from different institutions and organisations in The Gambia.