Gassa,

It is nice to see you back. I hope you had a wonderful time in Kenya?

Regarding free education for girls , I think it is indeed very pleasing on
the part of the government regardless of the “crossfire” rhethoric given the
unprecedented nature of the move. In other words education for girls was
paid for by parents before and now it is NOT  which therefore,  in my search
and quest for fundamental, penetrating observers not relying on intuition
but rather on the process of reasoning, the government deserves the credit
under the leadership of  President Jammeh.

I also have to echo that  Sanusi's question is indeed in exact parallel with
my deduction form the premise of your statement indicating the president
seems to be the one responsible for funds being disbursed as if he is coming
out of pocket solidifying  suspicion that state assets are indeed being
treated as personal properties.


Such statements uttered by you and  subsequent observations by the APRC camp
could be justifiably viewed as a deliberate  assertion to perpetuate the
belief that government funds are indeed being treated as personal properties
of the status quo , and clearly makes it much more difficult to defend
against the allegations of misappropriation.  Speaking from a western
perspective of  “public relations” it would be a bombshell for an incumbent
leader to claim such accolades under his name, but politics in the Gambia is
indeed a totally different ball game and President Jammeh has mastered it
which reminds me of  the “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY” syndrome when it
comes to campaign for re-election and he deserves an A plus for  doing his
homework.

This is clearly obvious  from the recent headlines pertaining to the topic,
particularly with  the suspicious, seemingly accurate but hard to swallow
statements echoed by Tombong Saidy classifying the move as another political
point scored by the APRC given the opportunistic nature of the Gambian
voters.

I therefore hope that education will soon be free for everyone and make it
mandatory for every child to be in school.

You  wrote:

"Parents only have to submit 4 passport size photos of their
girl child, get the head of school to confirm that the girl attends that
school, the head compiles a list of the girls enrolled and bingo, his
excellency writes out a cheque covering tuition and books."

Finally,  since it is my sincere belief that there is some good in granting
free education for girls in any part of this world , I  also beg to defer
from Mr. Karamba’s piece in which he mentioned the statement below:

“To crown it all the government is making sure that the vast majority of
kids in the public schools which is essentially everyone except for the few
thousand Gambians whose parents can afford private education , constitute a
vast pool of functionally illiterate people they can play like a political
yo-yo. The idea is to destroy the people's natural instinct to want to fend
for themselves, think for themselves and live their lives based on their
initiatives and succeed on their own terms”


Best Regards,


Ablie Njie- Lekbi
Atlanta


















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