Gambia’s president said that he wants to implement a policy change that would shift the country’s language from English to a local language.
“We no longer subscribe to the belief that for you to be a government you should speak English language. We should speak our language,” President Yahya Jammeh said during the swearing-in ceremony of Gambia’s new chief justice that aired on state-run Gambia Television Services on Friday.
He added, “The British did not care about education, that means they were not practicing good governance. All they did was loot and loot and loot.”
The announcement comes months after the West African country announced it is withdrawing from the Commonwealth, a collection of 54 nations made up largely of former British colonies, saying it would “never be a member of any neo-colonial institution.”
The United Kingdom recently warned its citizens of rising anti-British rhetoric from the president, who last year accused the former colonial power and the United States of organizing coup attempts in the West African nation. The allegations were denied.
