 [CITIZEN.CO.ZA] A year ago, Gambia
... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain...
ns wept for joy as Yahya Jammeh went into exile, bringing the curtain down on a brutal 22-year rule.
Today, many say freedom of speech in this small west African state is a right they cherish under President Adama Barrow’s administration.
"There is a democracy, everybody feels free. Disappearances without a trace ‐ all that’s over now," said teacher Kalipha Dampha, referring to the dreaded work of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the "Junglers," as Jammeh’s death squad was called.
But The Gambia’s faltering economy has barely improved and tensions over mass unemployment are rising.
Today, many are now asking when the better days they were promised will come.
"Food prices are still the same, salaries have not increased, the health sector is a shambles, the education sector is a farce," Ismaila Ceesay, a professor of political science at the University of The Gambia, stated bluntly in an AFP interview.
In terms of the economy, he argued, Barrow’s government is simply "following and inheriting the ideas of Yahya Jammeh," albeit minus the state of terror.
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