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20.5 C
City of Banjul
Monday, February 17, 2025
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People are scared

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Recently, a series of suspected murders have been reported by the police in the media. The details as given by the police are so shocking that one is left wondering what has become of us as a people and as a nation. An elderly marabout left his Bansang home in the company of two strangers never to return. When his wife made a distress call to the police, he was found dead by the roadside. A teenager Fatoumata Bintou Jallow who allegedly murdered her brother Abdou Rahman Jallow in Dippa Kunda. A 21-year-old housewife Haddy Boye who allegedly stabbed her husband Karamo Jobe to death in Sinchu Malado, Central River Region. And an old woman found dead in her house, the body reportedly mutilated.

These stories are as macabre as they are worrying? The more these killings occur, the more they become regarded as the new normal. After a fleeting moment of shock, people become inured to such news. At least one of the killings has the telltale signs of ritual killing. These together with the series of brazen brigandage of violent armed robberies are beginning to freak out people in the country as no one seems be safe anywhere in the country anymore.  The law enforcement agents must do everything possible to bring the culprits to book and reassure the public that they are safe.

The Gambia was considered to be one of the safest countries in the sub-region where people could go out at any time and go anywhere without fearing that someone with murderous intentions will attack them and do them harm. This perception is changing fast with reports of killings every now and again. Incidents of murder should be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators brought to book in a timely manner. The full force of the law should be brought to bare on anyone convicted for murder to serve as a deterrent to others who may have similar intentions.

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The government should get its priorities right. Rather than directing hundreds of millions of dalasis to the army, it should invest in the Gambia Police Force, the Gambia Immigration Department, State Intelligence Services and the coast guard unit of the navy. This should be the pivot of the security sector re-engineering. It is time for tangible actions and not hifalutin rhetoric. The security of the lives and properties of the residents of The Gambia is primary responsibility of the president, the minister for the interior and the forces that operate under their purview.

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