By Amadou Manjang
The Gambian leader, President Adama Barrow criticized journalists on Monday whilst inaugurating the newly built Police Station in Serrekunda.
‘There are a lot of people out there, some are social commentators and some are journalists and they talk baselessly [about issues that are happening in the country],’ he said.
He frowns at journalists and political commentators, who report or comment on issues like the increase in crime rate in the country.
‘But according to statistics,’ he said ‘last week alone I think 65 cases were reported to the police for the entire week across the country. That means we have less than 9 or 8 cases in a day’.
He further added that journalists report crime cases in a bad way and this may scare tourists that are planning to come into the Gambia.
‘You [journalists] only report to destroy,’ he said.
He then called on journalists to report crime cases in a ‘nice way to encourage the people.’
He said that most political commentators do not understand what Security Sector Reform is.
He said they only think firing or hiring security officers is Security Sector Reform, but that is not Security Sector Reform.
‘I see people [political commentators] on panels in TV shows saying a lot of things, but they don’t know what Security Sector Reform is,’ he added.
He said people need to be enlightened about what Security Sector Reform is so that they’ll understand.
He said building Model Police Stations is the agenda of Security Sector Reform, and not to ‘change’ security personnel like some political commentators say.
