If the 2015 electoral victory of President Muhammadu Buhari astounded Africa, that of property developer, Adama Barrow, 51, in The Gambia in the December 1, 2016 poll was even more stunning. Mr Barrow was himself stupefied. His opponent in the election, President Yahya Jammeh, also 51, had ruled with an iron fist for about 22 years and was not expecting to be floored. Having won in 2011, he was overconfident. Even a despairing Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) observer group, frustrated by the chicaneries of the Gambian president, left the country, suggesting and fearing that Mr Jammeh didn’t seem prepared for a free and fair election. But anchoring a seven-party formidable opposition coalition, Mr Barrow pulled an upset, scoring about 43.3 percent of the vote to Mr Jammeh’s 39.6 percent.
Almost immediately, and astonishingly, President Jammeh conceded defeat and promised a smooth transition. Many regional observers thought this was too good to be true. But just when the accolades began to pour in, when it seemed Africa had managed to pull another country’s chestnuts out of the fire, the Gambian president made a u-turn and repudiated his concession speech. First he annulled the poll, and when that seemed indefensibly drastic, he indicated he would head for the malleable Supreme Court to challenge a poll he had initially described as the best and most transparent. He said, however, that he hoped another more transparent poll would be held by ‘God-fearing and honest’ electoral umpire.
Alarmed, ECOWAS leaders led by Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf stormed the tiny West African nation and counselled restraint and fidelity to the poll. In the delegation were Nigeria’s President Buhari, who still draws a mixed review over his general attitude to electoral defeat; Ghana’s John Mahama who last Saturday conceded defeat in the Ghanaian presidential poll after falling behind by about a million votes; and President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, first elected president in 2007. The intervention was, however, not as successful as the West African leaders had hoped. It seemed the impolitic, inflammable and immature statements made by a coalition partner of the victorious Mr Barrow influenced Mr Jammehs change of heart. The victors had promised to reverse some of Mr Jammeh’s policies.
While President Johnson-Sirleaf was quite forthright in admitting the failure of their mediation efforts, President Buhari had taken a more inscrutably optimistic stance. Asked after leaving the presidential palace whether Mr Jammeh had been receptive to their mediation, the Nigerian president had answered, “Yes, very much so.” It was not clear why a dissonance existed between the Liberian president’s response and President Buhari’s. But perhaps the absence of a communiqué, or at least a formal statement, was responsible. Everything considered, it is obvious that Mr Jammeh will remain obdurate for some time to come. He has filed a formal appeal before the Supreme Court, thus wrong-footing the ECOWAS leaders. They would have preferred the Gambian president to stick to his initial admission of defeat; but how could they disapprove of litigation which is also an integral part of the electoral process?
In last year’s presidential election in Nigeria, it became a cause celebre when former president Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat to President Buhari. Few expected that move. But when it came, not only did it lower tension and pave the way for a smooth transition after an election in which religion and ethnicity reared their ugly heads, it also became a watershed that many within and outside the continent hoped would serve as a robust example of how self-discipline and self-denial could positively impact politics. Evidently, Benin Republic and Ghana had preceded Nigeria in experiencing peaceful transitions of power from one party to another, whereas Nigeria had unwisely spurned the same breathtaking political and electoral progress for about 16 years despite clear cases made for change.
Mr Jammeh’s volte-face is an indication that the sober culture of peaceful political change is yet to take root in black Africa. It might also be an indication that the Gambian leader was not sufficiently inspired or motivated by his peers to embrace the civilized political culture of submitting to the electorate’s choice. In Ghana’s recent presidential election, the opposition party’s Nana Akufo-Addo unprecedentedly claimed victory even while counting and collation were still in progress. The irony of President Mahama’s presence in the ECOWAS delegation was not lost on Mr Jammeh. President Buhari thrice ran for the presidency and thrice failed but never once conceded. The Gambian president will probably have remembered that in 2011, unprecedented violence accompanied the then candidate Buhari’s failure to win the election or concede defeat.
With records that are less than glittering in most parts of Africa, particularly West Africa, regarding political transition and leadership recruitment and succession, and with one or two of Mr Barrow’s coalition partners foolishly threatening to put Mr Jammeh on trial despite initially conceding defeat, it is hardly surprising that the embattled Gambian leader has stubbornly upped the ante. There is, of course, no indication he will get away with that electoral affront without drawing flak from a weary and testy world. Nor, despite deploying troops in sensitive areas of the small nation of about 1.8m people, is he sure he can unify the country behind himself even if he secures victory in the courts, as his opponents fear. Whether Mr Jammeh has calculated the consequences of his brinkmanship is hard to say. If he had, he would be alarmed how close he is to self-annihilation.
For a long time, Africa has been laggard in politics, democracy, establishment of strong institutions, stability, and economic development. Peer review mechanisms have not remedied these weaknesses, nor have leaders who have flagrantly come up short on the scale of common sense felt shamed by global ostracism to display the self-contrition needed to open up their countries to better prospects. The Gambian stalemate, which is doubtless contrived and may be designed to secure for Mr Jammeh the absolute assurance of a peaceful retirement, opens the space for real African leadership, for a man of great intellect and stature who is able by personal example, charisma and excellent judgement to drive the true and substantial change the continent needs to turn the dismal corner.
Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana was nearly that man, but his fiery intellect and visionariness were vitiated by his intolerance of dissent and the size of his country and its economy. Nelson Mandela of South Africa, like someone born out of due season, was also nearly that man. But hobbled by age and preoccupied with laying a multiracial foundation for his country, not to talk of the newness of his country as an independent entity, took his attention from the main prize. Nigeria would have raised that man, but no one of stature has come from its forests and savannahs, and none has had the discipline and intellect to judge the mood and the times. Perhaps ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo would have been that man. But he lacked the vision and the depth and solidity of character needed to imbue the continent with the example it desperately needed.
Commentators in some parts of West Africa, including The Gambia itself, hoped President Buhari of Nigeria could be that man. Their hopes also appear to be misplaced. Not only does the Nigerian president lack the discipline needed to propel and reinforce lofty politics, as exampled by his intemperate and remorseless reactions to electoral losses between 2003 and 2011, there is nothing to show that he envisions greater things than the ordinary man can see. His divisive politics, acquiescence to ethnic and partisan exceptionalism, and inability to appreciate the needed balance between the provisions of the law and law enforcement practices have made him unable to rise to the stature needed to give the sub-region and the continent direction.
Mr Jammeh may be reasoning like an infant, and his 22 years of brutal and senseless politics a reflection of his poor perception of the deep fundamentals of politics; but what probably gives him the inspiration to behave as he does is the lack of worthwhile example to follow among Africa’s leadership cadre. There is a great opening for a great and true African leader to shine forth brightly. If that is too ambitious, there is at least another more modest opening: that of a regional leader whose precepts, bark and bite are more than sufficient to dissuade the kind of leadership truancy smothering Gambia.
