Conversations with Young Representatives: Hon. Abdoulie Njai, MP, The Gambia

Born and raised in Banjul, Hon. Abdoulie Njai is widely recognised as the youngest parliamentarian in the Sahel region and one of the most distinctive voices in West African politics. Elected to The Gambia’s National Assembly in 2022 for the Banjul Central constituency, he has rapidly established a reputation as a fearless advocate for youth, an anti-corruption crusader, a climate champion, and a defender of local governance. Before politics, he co-founded the Unity Foundation, which is a prominent NGO transforming lives across Greater Banjul and rural Gambia through healthcare, food security, and community development. On the global stage, he serves as Deputy Speaker of the International Youth Parliament, Country Focal Person for Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future, and member of the Global Parliamentarians on Climate Action. He is the founder of the Andandor Movement, which in Wolof means “togetherness” a youth-led initiative dedicated to reshaping political engagement across The Gambia. In this interview, he speaks with unusual candour about courage, accountability, his vision for Banjul, and the restless drive that defines him as a leader.

Q1. You grew up in Banjul and co-founded the Unity Foundation long before politics came calling. How did years of community service shape the kind of parliamentarian you became?

Growing up in Banjul, you cannot escape the realities of your neighbours. I saw families without food, communities without clean water, young people without direction. The Unity Foundation was our response — food distributions, Medicare provisions, borehole projects, blood donation drives, support for orphans. That work was not preparation for politics; it was politics in its most honest form. Service without a title, accountability without a salary. When I eventually entered the National Assembly, I already knew what constituents actually need, because I had been sitting with them, listening to them, and trying to solve their problems long before any election. That is a gift very few politicians carry through the door with them.

Q2.You also led D.O.C BJL — the Development Oriented Citizens of Banjul — and brokered a historic MOU with the Banjul City Council. What did that experience teach you about civil society and government working together?

D.O.C BJL was a school in every sense. We are a non-political civil society body, the umbrella for city groups working on environment, capacity building, employment, and community values. Negotiating that Memorandum of Understanding with the City Council showed me that government and civil society are not natural enemies; they can be powerful allies when trust is built deliberately. The MOU formalised collaboration that should have always existed. It taught me that change does not only come from confrontation. Sometimes you sit across the table, agree on principles, and build a framework that outlives any individual. That lesson has never left me.

Q3.During The Gambia’s 2016 political crisis, you stayed in the country and mobilised resources for citizens stranded at borders. Most people fled. What gave you the courage to stay?

Conscience. I could not look at people fleeing; families with children, the elderly, people who had nowhere to go and simply leave. Through the Unity Foundation, we gathered food and mattresses for those stranded at the borders and worked with aid workers and the Red Cross at the ferry terminal. It was not heroism; it was a basic human obligation. But that period crystallised something in me. I saw what a government’s failure looks like in the faces of ordinary people. I saw how quickly civil society must step in when institutions collapse. And I made a personal commitment that I would spend my life trying to ensure that never happens again to our people.

Q4.You were elected to the National Assembly in 2022. What have been your biggest legislative priorities, and where have you faced the most resistance?

From day one, my focus has been on three things: transparency, protection for ordinary people, and giving young Gambians a genuine stake in their own future. That has meant pushing hard for the reintroduction of the Anti-Corruption Bill, a critical piece of legislation that had been shelved and needed champions to bring it back. It also meant advocating for the Rent Bill, which protects ordinary tenants from exploitative landlords. I established a constituency secretariat to ensure Banjul Central residents have a real point of contact with their representative. And I have championed women entrepreneurs and young athletes who need structural support, not just rhetoric. The resistance always comes when you challenge entrenched interests. But you learn to persist, build coalitions, and find the right moment.

Q5.You have raised important bills, asked difficult questions, and advocated loudly. But advocacy and delivery are different things. Is there a point where a single passionate voice hits a ceiling?

Absolutely, and I think any honest politician who tells you otherwise is deceiving themselves or their constituents. There is a real and important difference between drawing attention to a problem and having the access and the resources to solve it. But the things my constituents need most — infrastructure investment, youth employment programmes, healthcare access, coastal resilience work — require more than a voice in the chamber. They require being genuinely embedded in the machinery of delivery, in the rooms where budgets are allocated and partnerships are formed. I am deeply aware of that gap between what I advocate for and what I am currently able to deliver. And I am more hungry to close it now than I have ever been. My people do not need a champion. They need results.

Q6.In 2025, you took on the government directly over its decision to seize control of McCarthy Square in Banjul, threatening legal action. Tell us about that fight.

McCarthy Square is not just land. It is the heartbeat of civic life in Banjul, a venue for national celebrations, public gatherings, cultural events, generations of memories. When the Office of the President announced it was assuming control from the Banjul City Council, with no public consultation and no clear justification, I saw it for what it was: a centralisation of power at the expense of local governance. The Local Government Act is clear — councils have the authority to manage municipal properties. I stood with the Council and made clear that legal action would follow if negotiations failed. Communities must retain ownership of their shared identity. Citizens need to see their representatives defend the law, especially when it is inconvenient.

Q7. The 2024 draft constitution was a deeply contested document. You chose to endorse it. Walk us through that decision, because it is more nuanced than it might appear.

It requires context. The original draft constitution was rejected in 2020 — and before I even ran for parliament, I made it a campaign promise that if elected I would support a renewed effort to give The Gambia a new constitutional dispensation. That commitment guided my position on the 2024 draft. Now, let me be very clear about what 'endorsing' it actually meant — because this is where a lot of the misunderstanding comes from. I did not endorse it as a perfect document, and certainly not as something ready to become law. No serious person would claim it is perfect. It is not the Quran. It has its shortcomings, its controversies, clauses that need scrutiny and debate. But it also contains genuinely progressive provisions that deserve to be heard. My endorsement was specifically for it to proceed to a second reading — a stage which would have committed the document to a Committee, where public consultations could restart, where citizens and civil society could resubmit their input, and where the Assembly could debate and refine it properly. If consensus still could not be reached after all of that, the matter would ultimately go to a referendum — and the people would determine their own destiny. That is the democratic process working as it should. What I refused to accept was the document dying in procedural limbo before ordinary Gambians even had the chance to engage with it again. Let the people decide. That was always my position.

Q8.You have asked the Vice President pointed questions in the Assembly — on border demarcation, rosewood smuggling, and agricultural tractors. How do you decide which issues to pursue?

I represent Banjul Central, but I sit in a national assembly. My questions are not only about my constituency’s streets, they are about the policy frameworks that affect every Gambian. Border demarcation has real economic consequences for farmers and traders. Rosewood smuggling is an environmental and sovereignty issue. The tractor promise was a presidential commitment that farmers were counting on accountability requires following through on that. I choose my battles by asking one question: does this matter to the people I serve? When the answer is yes, I raise my hand and ask the uncomfortable question. That is the job. But I am also learning that asking the right question and actually fixing the problem are two very different things, and I am increasingly focused on the second.

Q9.“Anandor” means togetherness in Wolof. You launched the movement in February 2022. What gap were existing political structures leaving unfilled?

Political parties can become closed systems — more focused on maintaining power than on cultivating the next generation of leaders. Young people in The Gambia are not apathetic; they are excluded. The Andandor Movement was founded to change that. We are a youth-led initiative dedicated to political representation, national unity, and meaningful development. We believe that until young people assume active roles in governance and decision-making — not just as voters or symbols, but as real participants — policy will continue to miss the lived experience of the majority of our population. And here is something I was equally explicit about on the campaign trail: being critical and holding government accountable does not mean being adversarial for its own sake. I made a promise to my constituents that while we would always speak truth to power, we would never allow that to stop us from working with government, or with any other stakeholder who is genuinely development-oriented. That collaboration — that willingness to build bridges without surrendering principles — is the Andandor spirit. Togetherness is not just a name. It is a working philosophy. You cannot rebuild a city or transform a country by staying in permanent opposition to everyone around you. You build by finding common ground, by being honest about disagreements, and by keeping your eye on the real goal: the people's wellbeing.

Q10.The movement’s three pillars are youth political representation, national unity, and meaningful development. In practice, how do these intersect?

They are inseparable. You cannot achieve meaningful development without political representation, because the people who design policies must understand the communities they serve. You cannot achieve national unity while excluding the majority of young people from the table. And political representation without development is just performance. In practice, we run youth engagement programmes, speak to young people in communities across The Gambia, and organise and educate. We believe solutions to our most pressing challenges come from within communities. So we empower those communities to take charge of their own development. The three pillars are really three faces of the same conviction: that every Gambian, regardless of age, has a right and a responsibility to shape this country’s future.

Q11.But meaningful development — infrastructure, investment, large-scale employment — requires access to resources and decision-making power that goes far beyond any movement or platform. How do you bridge that gap?

This is perhaps the most important question you can ask me, and I want to answer it honestly. At the community level, the Andandor Movement and the Unity Foundation have done remarkable things with very limited means. But there comes a point where the work outgrows what civic organisations and parliamentary voices alone can sustain. Real development — the kind that changes the material conditions of people’s lives at scale — requires you to be inside the rooms where resource allocation decisions are made. It requires relationships with the institutions that hold the keys to budgets, to national development programmes, to international funding pipelines. I have always been pragmatic about this. I am not interested in preserving any particular posture for its own sake. I am interested in doing the most I possibly can for Banjul Central and for this country. Leadership means constantly asking: am I in the most effective position to deliver? And being honest enough to act on the answer, even when it demands something of you.

Q12.The Gambia is one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world. As Country Focal Person for Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future, what does your climate advocacy look like at home?

The Gambia is deeply exposed — coastal erosion, flooding, agricultural disruption, and a dangerous dependence on imported fossil fuels that drain our foreign reserves. My advocacy starts in the National Assembly, where I try to ensure climate considerations are embedded in policy discussions that might not seem obviously environmental. It extends to international forums, where I represent The Gambia’s interest in a just transition — one that recognises that Africa’s smallest economies cannot be asked to sacrifice development while the biggest historical emitters move slowly. We deserve support for renewable energy, for adaptation, for building resilience. I push for that at every table I sit at.

Q13.Tell us about ECOLUM — Ecology and Environmental Luminaries. What makes it distinctive from conventional environmental advocacy?

ECOLUM was born from a frustration I kept encountering: the gap between brilliant ideas and actual implementation. There is no shortage of environmental vision in Africa. There is a shortage of the practical infrastructure to convert that vision into policy, into funded projects, into measurable change on the ground. ECOLUM focuses on exactly that — converting innovative ideas into sustainable impacts. We work on policy reform, practical implementation, and international collaboration to address critical environmental challenges. The word ‘luminaries’ is intentional — we want to spotlight the African voices and solutions that deserve to lead the global conversation, not merely participate in it on others’ terms.

Q14.As a G20 GCAP Alumni and member of the Global Parliamentarians on Climate Action, how do you navigate the tension between Africa’s development needs and global pressure for rapid decarbonisation?

With clarity and without apology. Africa is responsible for a tiny fraction of cumulative global emissions, yet our people suffer disproportionately from climate impacts. Any framework that asks African nations to abandon development pathways without providing the finance, technology, and capacity-building to replace them is fundamentally unjust. I make that argument consistently. At the same time, I believe we have a genuine opportunity — particularly in renewable energy — to build infrastructure that is modern, sustainable, and not dependent on fossil fuels whose prices we do not control. The Gambia has solar potential. The question is whether the international community provides the investment to unlock it, or whether we are left to manage alone. I advocate loudly for the former.

Q15.You serve as Deputy Speaker of the International Youth Parliament in Addis Ababa and as Country Representative for ISOCARP. What does The Gambia’s voice add to these global conversations?

We add reality. In global forums, it is easy to deal in abstractions — frameworks, targets, timelines. When a small nation with limited resources but enormous ambition sits at the table, it forces the conversation toward implementation and equity. What does this actually mean for a coastal city in The Gambia? Who pays for the adaptation? What happens to the young person who needs a job today while we talk about transitions that take decades? I see my role in those spaces as a translator — between the lived experience of ordinary Gambians and the language of international policy. I also make the case that African cities and urban regions deserve full participation in the organisations designing their futures.

Q16.In 2019, you were recognised by the EU-Gambia ‘Tekki Fii’ project as a thriving young entrepreneur. You now run Young-Consult LLC focused on ethical leadership. What does ethical leadership mean in the Gambian context?

Tekki Fii means ‘make it here’ in Wolof — the project was designed to show young Gambians that opportunity exists at home. That recognition reinforced something I already believed: you do not have to leave to succeed. Young-Consult grew from that conviction. Ethical leadership in the Gambian context means refusing to normalise corruption — not tolerating it in small things even when everyone around you does. It means transparency: explaining your decisions, keeping your word. It means recognising that leadership is stewardship of something that belongs to the people, not a prize you have won for yourself. These are not radical ideas, but they require consistent daily practice — especially in political environments where the temptations to compromise are constant.

Q17.You were named on the Under30 Global List of Distinguished Youth Personalities in Politics. When you speak to young Africans about leadership, what is the core message?

That your presence is not a favour granted by older generations — it is a right you must claim. Too many young Africans have been told to wait their turn, to be patient, to defer to experience. I tell them: experience that does not serve the people is not wisdom, it is obstruction. The continent needs you now. Your energy, your ideas, your willingness to hold leaders accountable — these are not qualities to be diluted with time. They are the engine of change.

Q18.If you could name one structural change in Gambian politics that would make the biggest difference in the next decade, what would it be?

The single most impactful structural change in Gambian politics would be the institutionalization of a programme-based governance framework, rooted in a national civic consciousness and a commitment to Pan-African ideals. This would replace the current ad-hoc, personality-driven approach to development with a consistent, long-term strategy focused on measurable outcomes rather than reactive governance. By fostering a political culture that prioritizes collective national goals and a shared identity over transient interests, The Gambia can ensure sustainable and inclusive development.

Q19.When you look at Banjul Central right now, what are the projects or investments that you most desperately want to deliver but have not yet been able to unlock?

There is a long list, and it sits with me constantly. A proper youth enterprise hub — a place where young people in Banjul can learn marketable skills, access startup capital, and build businesses without having to leave. Real coastal resilience works, because Banjul is one of the most flood-exposed cities in West Africa and the scale of intervention needed goes far beyond what advocacy alone can produce. Digital infrastructure — reliable connectivity, tech hubs, the foundation that makes a city attractive to modern investment and that gives our young people access to the global digital economy on competitive terms. Renewable energy expansion: we have already seen what initiatives like Solar Lumina can begin to demonstrate, but I want to leverage my international environmental profile — the networks, the relationships, the credibility built through ECOLUM and the global parliamentary climate platforms — to bring serious renewable energy projects into Banjul and the wider constituency. The financing and the partnerships exist internationally. What is needed is someone who can make the connection and see the project through. And sport innovation — diversifying how we develop and monetise athletic talent in this city, because sport is not just recreation, it is an economic sector, a social cohesion tool, and a pipeline for young people that we are currently underleveraging. None of these are fantasies. They are achievable with the right access and the right positioning. That hunger — to do more, to deliver more — is something I wake up with every single morning.

Q20.What is your broader vision for Banjul Central specifically over the next five years?

I want Banjul Central to be a model of what participatory, results-driven governance looks like. The constituency secretariat was the foundation — giving residents a real point of access to their representative. From there, I want substantive investments in youth skills and enterprise. I want the relationship between civil society and local government to be a genuine, productive partnership. But above all, I want to be in a position where I am not just articulating a vision but actively delivering it — where I have the access, the relationships, and the resources to match the ambition. Banjul is a proud city with a rich history. It deserves a representative who is not merely present, but effective.

Q21. In July 2022, Banjul suffered some of the worst flooding in recent memory. You were on the ground from the very first night. Take us back to that moment.

In politics, you can spend months debating a bill and never see the human consequence of it. A flood shows you everything in one night. When the rains hit on July 30th and 31st, the water rose faster than anyone could manage. Families were sleeping in mosques and schools. Children had lost their lives in the North Bank Region. By the time the Red Cross completed their assessment on August 2nd, over 600 households and more than 7,000 individuals had lost homes, food, latrines, everything. And Banjul was hit twice. The second wave contaminated the water supply on top of everything else. I was not going to sit in an office and issue a statement. I went out with the Banjul Red Cross Branch, Hon. Modou Lamin B. Bah from Banjul North, the Banjul Youth Committee, and a group of volunteers. We did an emergency assessment, identified the most vulnerable households, and set up a hotline for housing needs. Then came the harder work: finding the resources to actually help people. We connected with the HMD Charity Foundation, who supported 100 families directly. A charitable group donated D25,000 to our office, and I added my own contribution, which allowed us to reach 25 more families through the United Zone Fulbeh's humanitarian network. Was it enough? No. It never is. But it is the work. And it reminded me once again that what communities need in a crisis is not sympathy it is someone already embedded with the partners, the networks, and the resources to act immediately. That is the kind of representative I am determined to be, not just in a flood, but every single day.

Q22. You commissioned a National Assembly research report on emergency medical care — specifically, the requirement for a police report before injured patients can receive treatment. Why did that issue matter enough to you to take to parliament?

Because people were dying over paperwork. That is not an exaggeration — it is what the research confirmed. In The Gambia right now, if you are involved in an accident or a crime-related injury, you can be made to wait for a police report before a hospital will treat you. In an emergency, that delay can be the difference between life and death. I commissioned the National Assembly's Library and Research Department to look into this properly, and what they found was damning: no statutory or constitutional provision that clearly guarantees emergency medical treatment, a system that contradicts our own obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and a gap between patient rights on paper and what actually happens to people in the worst moments of their lives. The principle of "treat first, report later" already exists in many African countries. It is not a radical idea. It is a basic recognition that the right to emergency care is immediate and absolute — it cannot be held hostage to bureaucratic process. I am working to see this become law in The Gambia. And this is exactly what I mean when I say that my work in the National Assembly is about the daily, unglamorous, life-altering details that rarely make headlines but matter enormously to ordinary people.

Q23.Some political figures guard their independence fiercely, even when it limits what they can achieve. Others argue that what matters is impact, not the label. Where do you stand on that debate?

I stand firmly and without hesitation on the side of impact. I entered public life to change things for the people I serve — not to accumulate symbols of purity or to maintain a particular identity for its own sake. Independence is valuable when it amplifies your ability to deliver. It becomes a constraint when it walls you off from the rooms where real decisions are made, from the coalitions that can move things, from the resources that can transform communities. I think the most honest leaders — the servant-minded ones — eventually all arrive at this same place: you must be willing to put your ego, your comfort, and your political self-image entirely at the service of the people you represent. If I believed that the most effective thing I could do for Banjul Central and for The Gambia required me to change course, to seek new alignments, to work within a different structure — I would do it without a moment’s hesitation. And I would do it with a clear conscience, because the only loyalty that has ever mattered to me is the loyalty to the people who sent me to that assembly. Not to a position. Not to a label. To them.

Q24.Finally — what keeps you going? Politics is exhausting and the problems are immense. Where does your resilience come from?

From the people, always. When a mother in Banjul Central tells me that something I raised in the Assembly changed her situation — when a young person says that the Andandor Movement made them believe they had a future in this country — that is not abstract. That is the reason. I also draw strength from knowing the problems are solvable. The Gambia is not a country without resources, intelligence, or capacity. What it needs is leadership that is consistent, honest, and genuinely oriented toward service. When I am tired, I remind myself that the alternative — disengagement, cynicism, leaving the field to those who do not share these values — would cost far more than the exhaustion of staying in the fight. So I stay in the fight. And I am actively pursuing every available avenue to make that fight more effective, more impactful, and better resourced. I have not yet done what I set out to do for my constituency and my country. Not even close. And that, more than anything else, is what gets me out of bed every single morning.