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Momodou
Denmark
11755 Posts |
 Posted - 23 Aug 2025 : 17:45:33
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The Importance of the Police in Building Democracy and Good Governance
By Madi Jobarteh
Ultimately, the Police is the single most crucial institution that can make or break our democracy, peace, and stability. This is simply because the Police is the ultimate law enforcer. What and how they enforce the law have far reaching implications. In a civilized society, everything boils down to law enforcement which determines if there will be peace and progress or chaos and poverty.
The Gambia Police Force must recognize that it is not an alien or a colonial force, but the primary guardians of our democracy and rights. Our freedom or the lack of it depends on how the Police understand and enforce the law to allow or restrict rights and freedoms.
The Public Order Act does not need any permit for citizens to assemble in a public place. This is why the law is very clear in sections 5 and 6 that only when an assembly involves a procession and use of a loudspeaker will there be a need for a permit. The IGP has to recognize and understand this part of the law in full.
Otherwise, he will arrest, detain, prosecute, and jail a lot of innocent citizens who merely want to hold our institutions and officials accountable through public assemblies. This was how Femi Peters of Blessed Memory was unnecessarily jailed in Mile 2 for one year for merely organizing a political rally in Banjul in 2009 as part of normal democratic rights in a multiparty system. Other than that, Femi Peters did not hurt society.
Therefore, to continuously insist that any and every public assembly of citizens should require a police permit would be to stifle democracy and justice, especially when they want to merely show their grievance at the corruption and failure of public institutions. To prevent such an action in the name of a permit is not only a disregard or misunderstanding of the law but also undermining democracy.
I urge the IGP to release the youths unconditionally and create a safe space for citizens to assemble and express their grievance, peacefully. This way the Police would have helped to strengthen democracy and good governance and thereby promote peace and stability in our country.
The IGP should stop using permits as an excuse to curtail citizen action. Secondly, while we have noticed that the IGP grants permit today more than ever, the conditions usually attached to these permits also tantamount to stifling the objective of protests.
The permits issued usually grant only a very limited time of 1 – 3 hours within a space of few hundred meters and sometimes confined to the bush or in uninhabited places. In most cases, permits are granted within 24 to 48 hours of the protest thereby undermining mobilization efforts.
All these are tactics that are inimical to democracy and human rights. I wish to therefore appeal to the IGP once again to recognize the indispensable and crucial position and role of the Police in the good governance of the Gambia. Let us urge the IGP to look at the good side of things in terms of freedom, democracy, and peace, and not from the side of restrictions and suppression.
Free The Youths. Immediately and Unconditionally. Allow Democracy to Breath!
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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The Importance of the Police in Building Democracy
