Essa Faal has promised the nation’s soldiers and police a better pay if he is elected into office in December.

Faal laid out a series of policies covering sectors including health, education and agriculture at a rally in Sunchu Alagie. 

He blamed the country’s poverty on bad leadership.

“I am promising the police of this country and the soldiers that: the day Essa Faal becomes the president you will feel the police job we valued. We place it on top of our agenda and the job of the soldiers are part of the important jobs of this country. 

“We will not joke with you [soldiers and police] and we will not disrespect you. We will pay good salaries in which you will have a better living condition so that no one will see you and look down upon you,” he said.

“We will not bring foreign soldiers into the country and place them over you [soldiers and police]. 

“We will not show you that we don’t care about people. The Gambian soldiers will guard this country, they will guard the president of this country,” he added.

Meanwhile, the lawyer-turned- politician also promised to rehabilitate the state central prison Mile Two where “prisoners will be transformed into better people.

“I say to anyone taken to Mile Two prison they are violating your human rights because it is dirty, it is bad and tiny. And the food is horrible. 

“There is no medicine and there is no medical care within the prison there is nothing. They only throw you there and forget you there.

“I will change this system and we will rehabilitate Mile Two prison to be a prison that will help to rehabilitate people. But it will no more be a place where people are taken to be destroyed,” he said.

By Adama Makasuba