Readers would recall that the government was severely criticized for focusing on national assembly campaign while giving little attention to the security threat that confronted Foni. Now after the election a military contingent has been established to patrol the relevant areas in Foni and the people have been expressing themselves on what they went through before the government took a decision to give them security protection.
The comments from the people in the area indicated how their lives and properties were threatened and how the armed opposition even established check points on Gambian soil.
Social auditing is the best way of gathering what the concerns of the people are and how they view the effectiveness of government response. The seats lost to independent candidates should be seen as an early warning signal of how the people in the area feel. The government should do everything to reach a final settlement on the border demarcation and ensure that there are enough security personnel at the border to protect the people in the area and make them feel that they belong to The Gambia and that its territorial integrity is inviolable.
