Essa Mbye Faal, leader of APP-Sobeyaa, has praised the economic performance of President Adama Barrow’s administration, arguing that the progress recorded in recent years should be sustained as The Gambia prepares for the December 5 presidential election.
Speaking to Barrow 2026 during the president’s ongoing Meet the People Tour, Faal acknowledged that the country still faced significant challenges but maintained that economic growth under Barrow represented an improvement on previous periods.
Faal recently brought his party into an alliance with the ruling National People’s Party (NPP), a move that has placed him alongside a president he previously criticised.
In his remarks, he compared the country’s economic performance across different periods since independence. He said annual growth exceeded six per cent during much of the period leading up to 1978, before slowing in the decades that followed.
According to Faal, economic growth averaged about three per cent from the 1980s through the period between 2014 and 2016, while the figures under Barrow’s administration had risen to approximately 5.5 to 5.7 per cent.
He described the figures as a “very good record”, while stressing that The Gambia could achieve stronger results.
“Can we do better? Yes. Do we want to do better? Or should we want to do better? Yes,” Faal said.
The APP-Sobeyaa leader called for greater cooperation among Gambians, arguing that national development required collective effort rather than continued political divisions.
“I am one of those who will propagate that we come together as a nation and people and work hard to uplift our people and take our country forward,” he said.
Faal also expressed optimism about the electoral prospects of the NPP-led alliance in December, although he stopped short of presenting victory as a certainty.
He said he hoped an electoral win would create an opportunity for a broader national unity arrangement that could bring together Gambians from different political backgrounds to work towards the country’s development.
His latest comments underscore his shift towards the Barrow camp ahead of the election. Faal, who was previously a vocal critic of the administration, is now publicly defending its economic record and expressing confidence in the ruling alliance.
His assessment of economic growth, however, is one part of the wider debate over the government’s performance. The figures he cited would have to be weighed up against other indicators such as inflation, employment, public debt and household living costs, to paint a more complete picture of how economic growth has affected ordinary Gambians.
