By Adama Makasuba
Police have said the security state of The Gambia is peaceful and calm amid the electoral process and that they don’t foresee any break in law and order throughout the election period.
Speaking to election observers at the conference centre, deputy inspector general of police, Momodou Sowe said: “For now, security of this country is very peaceful and very relaxing and there is no serious indicator that’s triggered or is signaling us that there could be serious break in law and order. And as I am talking to you, we have assessed the length and breadth of the country all indicators.”
“After the poling day proper, the contingency we have is the post-election period and this is a fragile situation and everyone here knows that polling has its own undertones and when its process is done there could be some chemises here and there. Those also we have adequate plan and adequate resources to ensure nothing of that kind happens so that the entire political process as far as security is concern is free, fair with a very peaceful atmosphere. Like I said, the post period normally is always the challenge but we are on top of it. We have provided both man and material to ensure any situation that comes across is handled.
“There is no situation in this country that (as) we projected that cannot be handled diligently and professionally. We are well prepared for every eventuality and we are well prepared for any unfortunate scenario situation we are also better prepared, better equipped and well-motivated to ensure we take care and handle that situation,” he added.
“We decided this time around to deploy our own assets to every political aspirant to go with those particular units to the length and breadth of this country so that among the units they will be easily to communicate. Looking at the geographical landscape of this country it is much narrowed and in that process, when all the aspirants are crossing in the country there could be a problem. So, to avoid that happening we ensure we have units that communicate with themselves, they plan both the entry and exit routes so that there is no fracas between political parties.
“So, I am happy to report that since the kicked-off of the campaign we didn’t receive any single incident as far as that situation is concern. So, that means the mechanism we put in place to ensure everybody cross easily, effectively and diligently to exercise their constitutional rights to reach as far as place in this country is concern, it has been done successfully. The next stage is the D-day proper where we don’t expect any problem but here every polling station will be covered by us across the country. We have 1,554 of them and we have deployed effectively to all those polling stations to ensure that polling day and polling progresses is done peacefully and without any hindrance,” he added.
