Mai Fatty Calls For Fairness in Alleged Police Brutality

Photo: Mai Ahmad Fatty (Photo Credit Culled From Facebook)

By Ousman A. Marong
The Leader of the Gambia Moral Congress (GMC) party, Mai Ahmad Fatty has called on the government of President Adama Barrow to thoroughly investigate the alleged police brutality involving the Commissioner of the Police at Anti-Crime Unit (ACU), Gorgi Mboob.

“I am begging Gambians, particularly those on the social media to be patient and to wait for the conclusion of the investigation. Let’s wait till the National Human Rights (NHR) issued its results and recommendation and from there we can directly face those in question so as to implement their recommendation,” said GMC leader.

According to the GMC leader, the government should wait for the completion of the investigation before concluding on who should resign or be sacked.

He made these deliberations during a press briefing held in his party’s secretariat in Pipeline, Kairaba Avenue.

“I am begging the panels of the investigators to expedite its proceedings because the citizenry is no more with the patience. The Citizenry is no more patient because there were many police misconducts. They are with grief and anger and can’t more contain the endless misconducts within the law enforcement services,” he remarked.

He challenged the investigators to speed up with their investigation in order to lower further tensions from the citizens.

“If I want to preempt on the investigation and at the same time want to prejudice the ongoing investigative that would be irresponsible of me. I want the Gambian people to focus on what is going wrong and not what is happening,” he said.

Fatty added that what is going wrong from one or two individuals cannot use it as a means to demonize and the entire institution.

“I have seen a lot of calls saying: ‘Scrap the Anti-Crime Unit.’ That is very dangerous because you have a problem with the messenger that doesn’t mean you should eliminate the message. In this case, Gorgi Mboob is said to be a bad messenger but the message that is been carried is a very good message. We must not reject the message because we don’t like the messenger. That is the issue, he noted.

The former Interior Minister said one may not like how Gorgi Mboob operates as social media has indicated but that is not to say ACU should not do its work.

He continues that it is this country that has not risen up in order to be fair to its law enforcement institutions.

He stated that it is the only Gambia where most police officers only one pair of boots, adding that most of them have one uniform for years.

Describing how officers go with a single pair of uniform, the outspoken political leader said: “You see them in the hot sun and even their collars get torn. They are sweating because of the hot sun and they smell because of the sweat,” he concluded.