Students of the Royal College of Defense studies Pay President Barrow Visit

Students from the Royal College of Defense Studies on Wednesday May 31, 2017 held a closed door meeting with President Adama Barrow at his office in Fajara

Meanwhile the team was headed by Major General Craig Lawrence –CBE, who was accompanying by the British Ambassador to the Gambia Collin Craw.

Shortly after the close door meeting with President Barrow Major General Craig Lawrence told reporters in an exclusive interview that their visit was just to get an idea from President Barrow of the challenges that lay ahead of the Gambia to move forward to achieve the greatest ability prosperity in security

This Major General Craig said the students are currently on their 11 month of master’s level of peace graduate Corse in how nations achieve prosperity, instability and security.

According to him before visiting the country they had been to Nigeria, Sierra-Leone and Senegal with his team

He said President Barrow changing 22 year of the previous role and taken the country with a vision of how he wants to take it forward and to take a personals view from him (President) of the challenges that lays a heads of the country.

So our meeting with the President was a fantastic one, the president gave an overview of this challenges and how he sees them. As students they are going back to senior jobs in their various countries and take what they have learned from the Corse to make their ‘own’ various countries more prosperous, more securable and stable

Major General Craig said Gambia’s hierarchy is the same presidential system  with other African countries like Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra-Leone, he said these countries that had never have presidential system  but comes down to the power of personal leaders, the individual leader and  the power of the individual to drive the country forward,

This he said is a big takeaway for them, how one man can galvanise a nation and give a nation hope and the possibility really becoming much more prosperous.

He said: “So the institutions can function or work without the individual with the clear vision of where to get to, the determination to take alone the people and institutions with him and the most importantly to have the confidence of the people with him.”

He said they are very keen to understand of how the organisation that makes up a state, institutions like the justice ministry, foreign ministry and the arm forces of how they can be and what their role is to drive a nation forward

He said President Barrow was talking about the new Gambia and its institutions of how the country can take that challenge and drive forward to deliver his (president) wishes

He concluded that the visitors (students) will take alone back to their various countries of that understanding with them as they are from develop and developing countries, saying “so that everybody can learned from experience”.

Yankuba Drammeh, Deputy Chief of Defense Staff said it could recalled that the arm forces had gone through some very difficult times in the past and question now is ‘how do they move forward as an institution’.

He said obviously they cannot given the animosity of the problems which he said take a considerable time to refocus and redirect the thinking of officers and men of the Gambia Arm forces.

He said what they intend to do as an institution is to undertake what they called security sector reform, noting that what is going to be the outcome that reform, as they are looking out to have an arm forces that is responsive to the needs and aspirations of the every Gambian and subordinates, accountable to civil authority and a grounded force to the role of law and international standards

He said their challenges are enormous but they share commitment and determination from all individuals within the arm forces and political support they can achieve desire aims and objectives as an institution

He said they are looking at how do the Gambia Arm Forces redeem their image as a credible defense instrument and regain their positions with their brothers and sisters as the commitment is there at the highest level.