Pursuant to the 1997 Constitution, the State, including the police, have a fundamental duty to observe, respect, protect, promote and fulfill the rights and fundamental freedoms of every Gambian.
Law enforcement agents are the most visible manifestation and embodiment of Government authority. To attack them is to invite lawlessness and anarchy. Under anarchy, there is nothing to forestall evil people from committing heinous acts such as murder, theft and rape. Within any state, including the Gambia, the police are needed for the prevention and detection of crime, maintenance of public order, traffic control and assisting the public.
Anybody who attacks our law enforcement agents is deemed an agent of anarchy. These forces, especially the police force, have a history of bestiality and brutality. They also have a history of faults, repression, coercion, and intimidation—all used in maintaining the status quo and protecting the establishment.
There has been a recent trend where civilians have, for one reason or another, felt justified to attack law enforcement agents on duty. There were those who saw it as an empowering moment where a citizen was reacted to an oppressive system. Others saw it as a serious affront to the rule of law.
No matter the justification, there should be other avenues instead of attacking security officers. There should be effective complaints and redress mechanisms that aggrieved civilians can use to channel their grievances and seek justice whenever they feel wronged by the police.
When our combined security forces wantonly attack unnamed and defenseless civilians, we strongly condemn this brutality. However, when civilians attack the police and other combined forces, these actions are considered a moral catastrophe and a prelude for disaster. The main point is that we don’t want to live in a police state, but instead a democratic and free Gambia.
Any security officer who extra-judicially attacks a citizen or uses unreasonable force is a criminal and should be reprimanded. Along the same line, citizen or affiliate of a party who attacks our combined security forces is a criminal and must be punished.
Systemic challenges notwithstanding, it should always be remembered that not all officers are bad. In the fulfillment of their duties, police may sometimes resort to force and firearms, arrest and detention, search and seizure.
Because of their proximity to citizens and their potential to curtail citizen’s rights, police officers as a matter of necessity must be adequately trained and equipped to ensure that they do not abuse these powers. They must have the temperament and good judgment in how they interact with civilians as they do their job.
When exercising these powers, they must comply with the law, including practicing restraint and using legal force only when it is necessary and proportionate.
Although these recurring police brutality might cause feelings of hopelessness and helplessness among our citizenry, we must remain resolute in our spirit, thoughts, and prayers. We must continue to constructively push our government and combined security forces to stop these acts of unbelievable police brutality. These men and women in uniforms who engage in this brutality need to change and support the Gambian people.
Two and half decades of police brutality in Gambia still have lasting effects. What started as localized police brutality metamorphosed into an epidemic in Brikama, Faraba, KanilaiYumdum and in Serekunda, full-blown police banditry, and finally a standing armed security of terrorists at their epicenter in the Greater Banjul Area.
The government needs to introduce a new kind of politics or policies in ethical policing while maximizing the use of diplomacy, political and cultural reconciliation, preventive security, and economic intervention to constrain and neutralize aggressors, resolve the causes of bitterness, and provide better conditions for a just and lasting peace. To make this peace possible, we need new leaders, and elders who will tell the truth about this political violence and crises and work to guide our country onto a new path.
We want peace and security and prosperity in Gambia, and now is the time for a new and innovative approach and community policing based on security reforms.
The government needs smarter diplomacy to deal with the political crises, as well as to cope with the current troubles in its relations with the people. It must apply a smarter diplomacy and seek to alternative ways to deal with situations if the first option does not offer a credible opportunity. We cannot wait for a situation to change; instead, we must invoke different diplomatic options to create a new Gambia.
Our combined security forces are too heavy-handed. Their use of force and bravado is not necessary. These forces should learn to use a gentler and smarter power. Policing is an art dependent on good interpersonal relationships and negotiations. These are skills that, when deployed tactfully, have reliable results. No person with a weapon can harass and intimidate unarmed civilians.
The fact that you have teargas canisters does not mean you have to use them. Most problems have more than one solution, so do not use excessive force. Choose the alternative, which is to apply due processes of law!
Our government along with our men and women in uniform must remain resolute and determined. They must have moral superiority and not just the advantage of strength. Many in our security forces have made sacrifices, even supreme sacrifices, to keep our country safe. We must identify them and support them.
This current and implacable evil must be defeated. We will either defeat it, or it will defeat us by drowning our country in blood and compelling us to accept the barbarism of anarchy.
We should therefore transform to a situation where the need for the police to resort to limiting civilians’ rights is dictated by the law, pursues a legitimate aim of protecting life and maintaining order.
Images of police officers lowering the dignity of Gambians, who are essentially their clients, bosses or even employers, such as brutal beatings and humiliation should be a thing of the past.
May the Good Lord accept the souls of the dead after all of these years of police brutality, heal the injured, wipe the tears of the grieving, and comfort the living. May God bless Gambia.
@Alagi Yorro,
Your analysis is seriously flawed. You flip flopping between condemnation of police brutality and downright criminalization of a particular demographic group. You then go back to trying to appease both sides by pointing out what they have done or not done with regards to responsibilities and duties. Your essay was unnecessarily long without cutting to the chase.
It seems you wanted to play the middle ground, compare and contrast and then be a good adjudicator. Well the reality on the ground here does not allow for such. There are two clear distinct sides in this case, one inherently corrupt and brutal in nature. That’s the Gambia Police Force. The other side is a frustrated disenfranchised group of young men and women who are not catered for by a system that is created to put food on the table for the privileged minority in society.
The anarchy and breakdown you highlighted in your headline is only now been taken to the streets. But it has always been there; in the homes, in the ghettos, at the work places, at the farms, at the bantabas, on the highways, in the schools, in the institutions, in the markets and the list goes on and on.
After Gambians collectively kicked out a dictator, their hope and collective dream was a Gambia that provides for each and everyone regardless of class and or political affiliation. It’s coming to three years and the dream is as distant as it ever was before, whilst the hope has turned into a more potent form of hopelessness. Now, who is to be held responsible for that?
You “wishywashily” apportioned a little responsibility to each section of society. I think you buried your head in the sand there too. We are paying a cabinet, a judiciary and a parliament to uphold the social contract of representation, provision and protection. That responsibility lies square on the shoulders of………….. Yes! You got it right.
Our responsibility and duty is to hold them accountable for acts and omissions towards this contract. If the avenues for accountability checks are not created or are stifled, the street will become the natural battle ground.
Whether the actions and activities in the streets will remain peaceful or not, depends entirely on the quality of leadership we have and how said is equipped first with knowledge to tactfully handle inflammable situations. Second is the goodwill to act to resolve the causes of any grievances.
Another sharp analysis of our troubling conditions is needed from you. This one is below your standard.
Yours in the service of The Gambia and Afrikka, I remain.
It has been said severally on this platform, that people who love our country, those who love our peaceful nature must refrain from inciting our youths to go out on the street to protest in this present climate. Except at the ballot box, This is why.
1. It is abundantly clear that we have an unstable economy.
2. We have large number of unemployed youths.
3. Large number of uneducated youths.
4. Deep frustration in our communities.
5. Poverty.
6. Anger at the last regimes and current administration.
It begs the question, what do “you” expect when you remove the lid from this boiling pot?, when you encourage protest.
ANARCHY. Yes Alagi, a complete breakdown of law and order.
There is no way, no how we can tolerate or justify a breakdown of law and order in our society. No matter the issues with the security forces, no matter the problems with this administration, any form of rebellion, justified or not, must be stopped.
Those who hide behind the screen urging vulnerable youths to go on our streets are CRIMINALS and bear some responsibility for the loss of life and property we witnessed.
An administration that does not pay attention to the plight of young Gambians is not blameless.
An unprofessional police force is not blameless.
Obviously there is a lot of work that needs to be done in today’s Gambia.
God will see us through.
That Gambians are a peaceful people or are generally good natured is an ILLUSION of the highest order. It’s a fallacy that we are different from any other people just because we are Gambian, Muslim or Christian.
Those who butchered their fellow human beings in our country are Gambians, Muslims and Christians. Imagine someone so close to you, with whom you shared your food with, with whom who shared your innermost secrets with, whom your children call uncle, who is your blood, turning on you out of the blues to execute you whilst smiling and expecting a payout. Is that what “you” call a peaceful nature?
Or those who wantonly kill citizens who have the best of intentions to invest in their country and create employment for the youth. No one should tell me these atrocities were carried out by only men in uniform. Heck! “You” have civilian ministers, imams, community leaders witnessing the gruesome killing of inmates in the name of “state sanctioned executions”.
Today, the country is poorer than ever before. Our school system is producing more students than we could create jobs for. These young people see only a future of misery and despair. Many will never ever be able to build a decent house, have a family to feed and a nice pension.
In my right mind, I wouldn’t call that a peaceful society.
Those who bear responsibility for the slaying of 45 Afrikkan compatriots are promised to be released pending the “good contemplation” of the executive without any mention of the families of the murdered fellow human beings. That’s criminal and they (Ba Tambadou and the entire executive) are not “hiding” behind screens or pen names.
I, Mwalimu cannot be caged, muzzled or dictated to with regards to what I say, how I think or conduct myself. That was made clear on this platform from the word go. Closed chapter!
The political situation offers two possibilities:
1. We either stand our ground and demand to be treated as human beings with respect and dignity. This means volleying political figures out of office who lie to us, steal our money and entrench themselves.
2. We shut up and accept to be slaves for the few who gives a monkey about the welfare and needs of the majority.
By so doing, we should just wrap up the future of the next generation and hand it to a bunch of clueless dimwits for them to live in paradise and the rest rot in hell on earth.
I hereby call on all Gambians to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed rights without resorting to violence and vandalism. Nobody loves this country and its people more than the people calling for Adama to be pressured to leave office come December/January 2020. Am glad to count myself among these people.
We have achieved regime change. We will do system change!
We could have security of lives and property, and at the same time respect and protect constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights for the whole of The Gambia and for very Gambian without one diminishing the other. The onus lies on the leaders to make a commitment to both, not just with words but by committing to tangible and measurable steps that will better the lives of all people.
The problem however, is the unwillingness of the upper elite class to share power, responsibility and resources. They love privileges too much. That’s a deep psychologically ingrained deficiency in the institutional cultures of The Gambia. How that came about is another topic of its own.
The solution to not having people take the law into their own hands, is to have a responsive political leadership that is WILLING and ABLE to attend rapidly to the evolving challenges of governance. That’s not all. It needs to have the backing of a well oiled cadre of technocrats strewn across critical sectors to form a web of coordination to keep the government always on top of its game.
Unfortunately, the men and women we currently have in office are neither willing no able to scale up their game to top notch. They therefore are not fit to rule and should vacate office come December/January 2019/20.