President-elect Adama Barrow has vowed that he will be sworn in ‘on Gambian soil’ today despite efforts of incumbent Yahya Jammeh to prevent it.
This is also as the Nigerian Air Force, on Wednesday moved a contingent of 200 men and air assets to Dakar, Senegal, which is the base of the Economic Community of West African States Military Intervention (ECOMIG) to force President Yahya Jammeh out of power.
The Nigerian troops, which left from the 117 Air Combat Training Group camp in Kainji, Niger State, on Wednesday, will join troops from Senegal, Ghana and other countries in the West African sub-region.
The ECOMIG troops are to ensure that Jammeh hands over power to his successor, Adama Barrow, on Thursday (today)
Barrow, who defeated Jammeh at last year’s December 1 election said his inauguration would go ahead as planned in spite of attempts to thwart it.
The election winner, who was believed to be in neighbouring Senegal, released a statement on Monday afternoon saying he would be sworn in “on Gambian soil” on Thursday. He will then get to “work on reversing serious damage caused by 22 years of malgovernance”, his spokesman added.
Hours earlier, the country’s Chief Justice, Emmanuel Fagbenle, said he could not rule on an injunction filed by Jammeh to prevent Barrow’s inauguration from going ahead. The incumbent president had tried to prevent Barrow attending his own inauguration, along with many government officials.
Barrow won last month’s presidential election, bringing an end to two decades of Jammeh’s rule. But after initially accepting the result, Jammeh went back on his decision. He said he would nullify the result because of what he claimed were errors made by the electoral commission and would remain in power until he could hold new elections.
High-level diplomacy by West Africa’s most prominent presidents has failed to persuade him to cede power: two visits by Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari and Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who also chairs the regional body ECOWAS, have made Jammeh no less belligerent.
On the last visit last week, Barrow left The Gambia with the presidential delegation and went to Mali for a France-Africa summit, at which François Hollande, the French president, voiced his support for the former estate agent who achieved his victory by running as the candidate of an eight-party coalition. Barrow later travelled to Senegal.
It was unclear is Jammeh will try other means to prevent Barrow’s inauguration billed for the national stadium in the Gambian capital, Banjul.
Many of the country’s military and security officers have been arrested in recent days, said Barrow’s spokesman.
He condemned their detention as an “egregious act”, adding that the president-elect calls on Gambians not to respond to provocation and to maintain the peace.
Meanwhile, following the resolution passed yesterday by The Gambia’s National Assembly, President Yahya Jammeh will stay in office for three months. The parliament passed the resolution hours when Jammeh was due to leave power.
The decision announced on state television has heightened tension with leaders of the West African bloc Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), who have threatened sanctions or military force to make Jammeh hand over to opposition leader Adama Barrow, who won the election.
Jammeh on Tuesday declared a state of emergency, saying it was to prevent a power vacuum pending the Supreme Court ruling on his petition challenging the election result. The National Assembly resolution almost gave the government authority to prevent Adama’s inauguration.
As of the time of filing this report, Barrow was said to be in Senegal and could, in theory, be sworn in as president at the Gambian embassy in that country, which is technically on Gambian soil.
Gambia is one of Africa’s smallest countries and has had just two rulers since independence in 1965. Jammeh seized power in a coup in 1994 and his government has gained a reputation among ordinary Gambians and human rights activists for torturing and killing opponents.
Few people expected him to lose the election and the result was greeted with joy by many in the country and by democracy advocates across the continent, particularly when Jammeh initially said he would accept the result and step down.
Jammeh’s decision to reverse that position created political turmoil. At least five ministers have resigned from his government, hundreds of people have fled to neighbouring Senegal and others in the country say they fear violence.
British tour operator Thomas Cook started evacuating nearly 1,000 holidaymakers yesterday. It said on its website it was laying on extra flights in the next 48 hours to remove 985 package tour customers.
It was also trying to contact a further 2,500 ‘flight only’ tourists in Gambia to arrange for their departure on the earliest available flight, it said in a statement.
Gambia’s economy relies on one main crop, peanuts, and tourism. Its beaches are popular with European holidaymakers seeking a winter break.
