Editor,

This is in response to what the author of that article wrote about our dear beloved president. In all honesty, I really want to commend him for his thoughts and observations, because every single aspect he touched on about this great man, who should be a role model for all Gambians and Africans in general, was definitely on point without a shadow of doubt.

President Jammeh, because of his ideologies, beliefs and actions, has made every genuine Gambian and African in general proud. The least we can do as a people is to support and work with him, because as a nation and continent we can never be independent without being self-sufficient. He has not only told us, but he has also practised, from day one, that any nation or continent that depends on another (the West) for its survival will always be controlled and manipulated by the hand that feeds it.

We as Africans need to break free of that routine and we do have enough resources to do that. It has reached to a point now where as the hand (the West) that feeds you can hardly feed itself because of the global economic mess we are in. But unlike the West, Africa does stand a great chance of getting out of it because we have got the resources and means to do so, and, in my opinion, if there is a better time of being self-sufficient, I think this is it.

We are a race of strong, able-bodied, intelligent and hardworking people and so we need to get rid of the bad mentality of us not being able to do anything for ourselves without the West playing a vital role in it. Way back in the olden days, our ancestors were self-sufficient, and this could be seen in the great Egyptian Empire, Mali Empire, Ghana Empire, to name a few. They did not need the West for anything; instead it was the other way round.

We fed the world, we educated the world and we also civilized the world. And obviously that gene is still running in our blood, because we can clearly see it in our beloved leader, Yahya Jammeh and many other great African leaders that came before him. This clearly means that if we did it before, we can definitely do it again.

So lets rise up as one people, one nation and one voice, and take our destiny in our hands because then and only then will we know exactly where we are headed.

neteru999@msn.com