By Tabora Bojang
Presidential aspirant Mariama Khan has accused the police of unreasonable delay in issuing her a permit to conduct a nationwide grassroots mobilisation tour for her presidential candidacy for the December election.
Under Gambian law, politicians who wished to use a microphone to hold meetings are required to apply for a police permit.
Ms Khan explained that she submitted a request to Inspector General of Police since 19th February, 2026 seeking a permit to tour the country to mobilise for her independent candidacy and that after a series of screenings, interviews, submission of documents and availing them access to her facebook pages, she is yet to get any formal response from them.
Khan narrated that following the submission of her application, she was called by the Police Criminal Investigations Unit for a screening interview and advised that her intended three-month tour could impede the activities of other political parties and asked to shorten it.
She said she complied by reducing the time and restricting it to West Coast Region but that the police have not responded to her.
She said following a long wait, she contacted Kaaba Sowe, one of the CIU officers who interviewed her but he informed her they concluded their part of the investigation and passed their findings to the police Admin and Operations for a decision. “I asked Sowe to give me the numbers of the operations commissioner to follow up with them but he said he does not have their numbers. So when I eventually got into contact with Jaiteh who identified himself as commissioner of operations, he asked me to send him a copy of the application letter and he directed me to Musa Camara at Admin who he said was responsible but after a back and forth with Musa Camara there was no progress. On 15th June, I sent three of my members to Commissioner Jaiteh but he told them he did not see my application which was not accurate. Jaiteh referred them to Musa Camara but Camara said he was not going to meet them because he was busy and had another mission to run. So since then I have been trying to follow it up with them but now they are not responding to my messages, so up to now I could not get a permit,” Khan explained.
She lamented that this delay significantly restricted her political activities as she could not hold public gatherings apart from holding sizable meetings in her house in Brikama.
Khan further alleged that she and her team also tried to have a training of their mobilisers from different parts of the country but the police refused to grant them a permit to conduct it. “They asked us to write to them before we conduct that training but we wrote and they never replied to our letter,” Khan alleged.
“This is not how things should be. It is my constitutional right to stand for public office,” she lamented.
The Standard has, for several days, sought clarification from the police on these allegations but no response was provided up to the time we went to press last night.
Mariama Khan, 49, a former permanent secretary and Secretary General and Head of Civil Service is vying to become Gambia’s first female president following the declaration of her presidential bid. The Brikama born scholar, author and poet vows to liberate the country from the “extensive social and political corruption that has caused high levels of governance, security, economic, social and cultural crisis in the past ten years” saying her experiences, values, knowledge and skill align with all the demands for a critical transformative leadership that can proper Gambia forward.
Khan holds multiple master’s degrees in sustainable international development, management of development and criminal justice as well as a graduate certificate in security studies in the US. She now lectures at Lehman College, City University of New York.