Nigerian community the Gambia, Saturday 9 June 2018 embarked on a community cleaning exercise at the Serrekunda General Hospital in Kanifing. The group said the exercise is a way of giving back to the community in which they live. The acting president of the community Friday A. Ogbeiwi, traced the history of the Nigerian Community in The Gambia, saying it has been in existence since in the 50s. “When their Nigerian elders came to The Gambia and saw a vision that one day a situation like this will come.     So they stood up together to form this community”.

According to him, the aim of the community is to bring all the Nigerians living in the country together as one big family. He said they also intend to provide scholarship to deserving students regardless of nationality of the person or that of the parents.

Ogbeiwi called on the people of the two nations to forget the name Nigerian or Gambian and consider one another as one people, one big family in the eyes of God. He thanked the Government of The Gambia for creating a friendly atmosphere for all while expressing gratitude to the management and staff of the Hospital. He also hailed NEA for giving the tools for the exercise.

“Gambia is a peaceful nation, we pray that it continues to be so as usual because when it comes to stability, politically, Gambia is stabilized”, he noted.

For his part, the assistant PRO of the community, Michael Okon Okey, said they want to remind people that the Nigerian community still exists in The Gambia. He added that they have been silent for a long time but they are using the exercise to announce their existence.

“Gambia has been a very good home to us the Nigerians, a place where we have lived foe ages and we have been living freely and peacefully. And as a community, we thought is important to us to give back to the society in our own little ways. We have checked around and discovered that rainy season is fast approaching and the only thing we can do is to come to the serrekunda General Hospital to embark on this cleaning exercise. So we thought of looking at the health sector since health is a component of human life,” he highlighted.

By Olimatou Coker

Copied from Standard Newspaper, The Gambia.