POLICE BLACKENED IN DEUG-PUSHING

Banjul

A senior officer has said that it has become a serious concern of the
police that officers willingly work as agents for drug-pushers and
take up the initiative themselves.

The senior officer talking on condition of anonymity, told The
Independent that some of their men have been sending the name of the
police as an institution into serious disrepute and must be identified
and weeded from the force before they wrought more damage to their
image as uncompromising law enforcers. The officer said that the
involvement of policemen in activities of drug pushing has reached
alarming proportions as they submit themselves as willing accomplices
for irredeemable drug dealers who are being hunted by the police.

"Any security officer caught in activities related to drugs will be
dealt with according to law. He will be stripped and paraded as a
serious offender. The police are supposed to be role models, but not
accomplices in offences that are already giving our youth a hard time
and giving the country a bad name. In any institution, they are always
good and bad elements and it may take time to separate them. But we
are embarking on an exercise to cleanse the force of these deceitful
people" he added.

The police he said will do all their power to encourage people to
report drug dealers, smugglers and those who smoke cannabis.

The officer's interview coincided with a series of raids launched by
the police in Brikama where over 20 alleged dealers in illicit drugs
were arrested. Members of the unit justified the exercise, saying it
was waging an all-out war on drug dealing in the town after persistent
reports about such activities.

"It is the duty of the police to mount raids on citizens and
non-citizens who were dealing in drugs, which is a disincentive for
unemployed Gambian youths. We will not spare any drug dealer as the
police try to make a clean sweep of the area as part of its broader
exercise to transform The Gambia into a drug-free country".