Gbarnga, Bong – A one-day stakeholders training on Information and preventing election violence has ended in Gbarnga, Bong County.
The training brought together officers of the Liberia National Police, the Liberia Drugs Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization and cross sections of citizens.
Bill N. Freeman, the lead facilitator of the workshop, said the training was intended to educate civilians about security issues and strengthen relations between the security and citizens.
“Most civilians see police officers as enemies which is not so,” Freemen said. “Such notion that police officers are enemies has the propensity to create uneasiness between them.”
He said the role of the police is to work in line with the National Elections Commission and political parties to ensure peace is secure in the country.
“One main reason for this training is to understand civilians perspective on the police and elections and civilians role in preventing elections violence,” Freeman said.
“You [citizens] will tell us as trainers what kind of information you really need from the police in other to have a peaceful election, because, this election will be managed by us not by any foreign troop.”
Peter Dolo, a resident of Gbarnga thanked the organizers and called on young people of Bong to say no to elections violence.
“We the young people, we don’t need to involve ourselves into elections violence,” Dolo said. “Because if we do, it is our future we are playing with.”
Speaking to a LocalVoicesLiberia reporter at the end of the training, Sanyan Lahun said, “It is a good thing to keep learning about maintaining the peace”.
“For us as women, it is not only about us, but the young people, because they are the future leaders,” Lahun said. “Look at the past fourteen years of war, our children didn’t go to school.”
The training was sponsored by the European Union under the theme ‘Enhancing the Rule of Law and Good Governance Through Increasing Transparency and Access to Information in Security and Justice Sector’.
Report By: Fatu Boley