The National Assembly Elections are upon us. The National Council for Civic Education (NCCE) is kicking off a massive nationwide sensitisation to galvanise citizens to participate actively in the elections. The sensitisation campaign will begin on Saturday 12 February 2022 and will cover the entire country with community meetings and media campaigns.

The First-leg of the sensitisations which will be implemented in the URR North and South, forms part of the NCCE’s civic education activities to help fight against the growing trend of voter apathy which had been evident in past national assembly elections.

Speaking ahead of the Sensitisation, the Programme Manager of NCCE, Mr Yusupha Bojang described the upcoming parliamentary elections as important as the presidential elections and called on Gambians to take the elections seriously and vote for candidates that are competent and can ably represent them at the National Assembly.

According to him, there are many complaints that voters are not seeing their representatives after elections. To avoid these issues people should “look at the candidate and not merely the party he/she in representing because at the end of the day it is not the party that will represent you in parliament but rather the candidate you elected”.

The election is coming right on the hills of hotly contested presidential elections that have left the country deeply polarised. Therefore, as the nation’s flagship civic education institution, NCCE, is kicking off early the sensitisation campaign using the grassroots structures and the media to reach out to as many Gambians as possible with a specific focus on voter education, sensitization, mobilization and peace messages to ensure the elections process is inclusive, participatory and peaceful, Mr Bojang said.