{"id":90593,"date":"2025-11-20T15:52:34","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour"},"modified":"2025-11-20T16:08:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:08:19","slug":"dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour","title":{"rendered":"Dr Ismaila Ceesay Defends Meet-The-People Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. <\/strong><\/span><b>Dr. Ismaila Ceesay, Minister of Information, Media, and Broadcasting Service, has pushed back against growing criticism from opposition figures who argue that President Adama Barrow\u2019s annual meet-the-people tour has evolved into a partisan exercise.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Speaking in an interview with West Coast Radio, Dr. Ceesay maintained that the tour remains a constitutional obligation and a crucial forum for citizens to articulate their development priorities\u2014regardless of their political affiliation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe tour is not politicized to favor the incumbent,\u201d Dr. Ceesay said. \u201cPeople who are not aligned with the government are given the platform to say what they want to say.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He acknowledged that politics is naturally intertwined with the tour but argued that this does not undermine its purpose. \u201cYou cannot divorce politics from the tour because the whole tour is about governance and accountability,\u201d he said. \u201cThe aim is to interface with citizens, understand their issues, and respond to their needs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Ceesay further noted that other countries are looking to The Gambia\u2019s annual outreach model as an example of direct engagement between the presidency and the population. The framework, he said, ensures that citizens can speak openly with the head of state and hold the government to account.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCountries are trying to emulate what we are having in Gambia as a constitution for the president, at least once a year, to go and meet the people, interact with them, interface with them, listen to their concerns, but also they can hold them accountable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Responding to complaints about the cost and logistics of the tour, he insisted that the benefits outweigh the concerns. The tour, he said, strengthens transparency and provides a direct channel for communities to communicate with the country\u2019s leadership. \u201cIt is good for accountability,\u201d he added.<\/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. Dr. Ismaila Ceesay, Minister of Information, Media, and Broadcasting Service, has pushed back against growing criticism from opposition figures who argue that President Adama Barrow\u2019s annual meet-the-people tour has evolved into a partisan exercise. Speaking in an interview with West Coast Radio, Dr. Ceesay maintained that the tour remains a constitutional obligation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":90592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-90593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","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>Dr Ismaila Ceesay Defends Meet-The-People Tour - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. Ismaila Ceesay, Minister of Information, Media, and Broadcasting Service, has pushed back against growing critici ...\" \/>\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\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dr Ismaila Ceesay Defends Meet-The-People Tour\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Ismaila Ceesay, Minister of Information, Media, and Broadcasting Service, has pushed back against growing critici ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour\" \/>\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=\"2025-11-20T15:52:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-20T16:08:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/11\/sm_1763642236.810279.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\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\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Dr Ismaila Ceesay Defends Meet-The-People Tour\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-20T15:52:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-20T16:08:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour\"},\"wordCount\":312,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/11\/sm_1763642236.810279.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Gambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/dr-ismaila-ceesay-defends-meet-the-people-tour\",\"name\":\"Dr Ismaila Ceesay Defends Meet-The-People Tour - 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