{"id":88711,"date":"2025-10-25T18:31:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T18:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles"},"modified":"2025-10-25T19:19:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T19:19:16","slug":"mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Bensouda Advocates Umc&#8217;S Unifying Principles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. <\/strong><\/span><b>Talib Ahmed Bensouda, Mayor of the Kanifing Municipal Council and leader of the newly launched Unite Movement for Change (UMC), has said the movement\u2019s mission is to bring Gambians together around shared principles and values\u2014not personalities, which he believes have long dominated the nation\u2019s political landscape.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In a video address responding to the question, \u201cHow do you believe you can unite Gambians?\u201d Mayor Bensouda underscored that UMC was founded as an open, inclusive movement designed to transcend partisan divides and foster collective national purpose.\u201cWe created a movement because we don\u2019t want to create restrictions for people joining,\u201d Mayor Bensouda explained. \u201cWe want people, be they of political parties or not, to be free to join the movement without hindrance. We are basing it off of principles and values.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Bensouda stated that Unite is the Movement. He emphasized that the movement\u2019s central theme is encapsulated in the acronym UNITE. He detailed the core pillars of Unite that he believes should guide The Gambia\u2019s political and social transformation while phrasing out what the acronym stands for: U for Unite, I for Integrity, T for Transformation, and E for Equality.\u201cThese are the three ingredients we believe Gambians can subscribe towards and be unified by. And this is how we believe we can bring Gambians together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Bensouda reflected on his experience in various movements and political parties, noting that while many Gambian movements have been founded on ideas and concepts, the country\u2019s political culture remains largely dominated by personality-driven politics. He emphasized that the Unite Movement for Change (UMC) seeks to depart from this trend by fostering healthy differences rooted in ideas and principles rather than individual personalities.<\/p>\n<p>Bensouda added that while the movement aspires to eventually evolve into a political party, its growth must be organic and driven from the bottom up, ensuring that ordinary citizens play a central role in shaping its direction and vision.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Gambia<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. Talib Ahmed Bensouda, Mayor of the Kanifing Municipal Council and leader of the newly launched Unite Movement for Change (UMC), has said the movement\u2019s mission is to bring Gambians together around shared principles and values\u2014not personalities, which he believes have long dominated the nation\u2019s political landscape. In a video address responding to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":88710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,12],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-88711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-gambia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mayor Bensouda Advocates Umc&#039;S Unifying Principles - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Talib Ahmed Bensouda, Mayor of the Kanifing Municipal Council and leader of the newly launched Unite Movement for Cha ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mayor Bensouda Advocates Umc&#039;S Unifying Principles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Talib Ahmed Bensouda, Mayor of the Kanifing Municipal Council and leader of the newly launched Unite Movement for Cha ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-25T18:31:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-25T19:19:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/10\/sm_1761407281.593786.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Mayor Bensouda Advocates Umc&#8217;S Unifying Principles\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-25T18:31:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-25T19:19:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles\"},\"wordCount\":345,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/10\/sm_1761407281.593786.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Gambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/mayor-bensouda-advocates-umcs-unifying-principles\",\"name\":\"Mayor Bensouda Advocates Umc'S Unifying Principles - 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