Africa-Press – Gambia. The Chairman of Brikama Area Council (BAC), Yankuba Darboe, has expressed willingness to engage President Adama Barrow over national issues including concerns of Gambia’s Southern Senegal border areas.
Darboe spoke to journalists after a meeting of Foni-Kombo Mayors Association held in Bwiam recently which included councillors of BAC and mayors and councillors of the Southern Senegal Region of Cassamance.
The association which is headed by BAC Chairman wants to meet with Barrow to discuss common challenges facing Gambia’s southern area and Senegalese province of Cassamance. He said the potential dialogue would be beyond political spectrum.
According to Darboe, after discussing with Barrow they will like to see how best he can prevail on his Senegalese’s counterpart, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye to make sure that the association’s goals are achieved.
“We believe the Foni-Kombo region is endowed with a lot of wealth. We have lots of trees. We have a lot of resources. The problem we have is we don’t have exploring mechanisms for us to benefit from these endowments,” he said. Darboe disclosed that a lot of exploitation of the resources was happening within the region but it was all taken away.
“We believe that if we start having industries around here, turning raw materials into something else, it will enable lot of our people to have some meaningful livelihood and opportunity to hang on to.”
He says they are trying to promote free movement of people and goods in their region without having to fear of going anywhere within the region.
“We see these challenges beyond a political spectrum. We want to treat it as people-centred issue rather than politics because politics is one of the divisions we want to get beyond and then see the people,” Darboe remarked. “Our cultures, relationships, languages and other important things we shared with Senegal are factors we must look into to break the barriers that divide us,” he concluded.
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