The forgotten citizens of the Gambia rise up to be counted! For many of my generation of Gambian youths, you are the cradle for change; you are the heroes and hero ness of the struggle for the restoration for democracy, rise up to effect a change. Gambia youths, you are the catalyst that can put an end to the madness, which our people are engulfed into for many years only if you act wisely. The rise of Yaya Jammeh into power was the beginning of your marginalisation and exclusion in the mainstream society. The criminal regime has given you nothing order than empty promises. For 12 years of APRC government, what is the state of Gambian youths? The only answers to be found on issues of development perspectives are as follows: - hopelessness, disempowerment, poverty, hunger, unemployment, disease, environmental damage, lack of safe drinking water etc. Our people from Kartong to Koina are living on the edge confronted with all type of development problems.
   
  Now that the elections are coming it is not a rocket science to detect the flowery political language and hypocritical tunes of Yaya Jammeh. My fellow youths because of your votes, the soldier turned a millionaire who looted your coffers in front of your eyes and runs it dry is now associating himself to your pledge. What a sick joke! Today many of you and your families cannot even afford two square mills a day. I think it is an insult to your intelligence for Yaya Jammeh and his gang of heartless criminals to keep fooling you all the time.
   
  What can we do as forgotten and downtrodden citizens to beat the scam of these political fraudsters? The technique is simple only when we act wisely with our votes. We all know how Yaya Jammeh’s money politics of buying votes and dishing out money and order economic mismanagement policies have destabilised the state of our economy and further depreciate the value of the dalasis against other foreign currencies keeping depreciate the value of the dalasis against other foreign currencies keeping inflation at significantly high. Dishing money to you or taking money from corrupt politicians in the name for your vote is only a short-term problems as it those not address issues pertaining to your sustainable living conditions.
   
  The regime has criminalized institutions such as Central Bank of The Gambia in its vote rigging exercise, coming with new sets of bank notes, election after election. In the 1996 election it was his new notes of dalasis that replaced that of the first Republic, then few weeks before 2001 election came the emergence of one hundred dalasis notes, the news from Banjul is that on the 27th of July, few weeks before the election another denomination of the Gambian dalasis will be in circulation. Do the Gambians ever question the rational behind the issue of such bank notes in the run up to elections after elections? Watch out my fellow youths, your Excellency have a stockpile of the new notes to dish out in his money playing political game.
   
   
  The misrule of APRC regime has destroyed all sectors of our economy, which are the source of your livelihood. Tourism and agriculture which are the major employers are none existence. Gambia Government cannot pay farmers for their groundnut for almost five years now and the hotels are empty because Gambia is no longer an attractive tourist destination due to poor marketing strategies. The militarization of the tourism industry area and the destruction of Gambian owned beach bars as a wrong solution of addressing bumsters has destroyed such a vital sector of Gambian economy. Marketing Gambia in the global tourism market as a smiling coast of West Africa while in the eyes of the tourists it is a crying coast of West Africa-where they always witness military forces parading the beaches like a war zone. They have absolute power to torture you the very people whose livelihood depend on tourism.
   
  Hailing from Kombo, I know how much tourism means to the daily livelihood of the Youths. It is the source of survival from a taxi driver to a village gardener. The destruction of tourism industry by APRC regime has created mass unemployment in many communities. Secondly the back to land policy of the regime has turned out to be disastrous. Land grabbing becomes the order of the day and because of lack of sustainable land-use planning policies and legislation, fertile agricultural and woodlands are turned into concrete jungles which have further compounded hopelessness and exclusion especially in communities that depend on land for their livelihood. The only back to land policy means going back to Kanillai and farm for Yaya Jammeh. Ministers, Directors and Senior Government officials leave their urgent official duties to show their loyalist as a form of sycophancy culture, which embraces Gambian public life. You can be sack if you never appear in Yaya Jammeh’s farmer
 because you labelled as an opposition element. Why would he not provide these facilities in your communities for your sustainable living?
   
  Youths of the Gambia please make wise decision and give this criminal and gangster regime a red card come elections. It is this very regime that uses its absolute power to sack, murder, arrest, detain and torture many decent Gambians both physically and psychologically for 12 years. The Gambia National Youth Service Scheme, which the regime created to promote the welfare of youths, becomes failed scheme like our nation as a failed state. In 2002 election, the regime used the National Youth Council in its strategic vote canvassing efforts. Most of what they promised for youth development ended as futile promises.
   
  In the aim of Youth development, Yaya Jammeh and Baba Jobe in their unholy alliance formed a company called Youth Development Enterprise which was found by the Commission, of robbing our nation’s millions of dalasis in the form of tax evasion, landing fee for millennium airline, rice consortium and money laundering. Part of the proceeds of this criminal activities against our nation, where evenly distributed to APRC parliamentarians. One wanders to whom this money have been paid to now that Baba Jobe is incarcerated. I hope the majority leader; Honourable Churchill Baldeh will shade light about the payment of the loans.
   
  Youths of the Gambia there are lots of facts about the crimes and abuse of power, which you cannot ignore. There are lot of substantive evidence of wholesale state complicity in the act of barbarism. The rule of Yaya Jammeh is the histories of the hanged. You should be determining to take up the centre stage to people’s power if the election is rigged even if the entire apparatus of the security forces are mobilised against your course at the end of the day you are the winners. It is time we set aside Gambian amnesia and square up to the realities.

 			
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