The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Adama Barrow

  • Gambia: AU ‘to stop’ recognising Jammeh from January 19

    Gambia: AU ‘to stop’ recognising Jammeh from January 19

    The African Union will cease to recognise Yahya Jammeh as president of The Gambia should he refuse to stand down by January 19, the date he is due to hand over power to the winner of that country presidential election.

    The AU’s Peace and Security Council in a statement on Friday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, also warned of “serious consequences in the event that his action causes any crisis that could lead to political disorder, humanitarian and human rights disaster, including loss of innocent lives and destruction of properties.”

    The warning came on a day President Muhammadu Buhari was due in Banjul at the head of an ECOWAS delegation to persuade Jammeh to step down.

    Yahya’s political party, in the latest gambit, has gone to court to halt the inauguration of Adama Barrow, on the basis that Jammeh’s challenge of the electoral result, has not been decided by the country’s Supreme Court.

    The case was adjourned for months, because the court could not form a quorum.

    Barrow’s party pledged on Friday that Jammeh would be honoured as a former head of state if he steps down and suggested he might not face trial for alleged crimes during his 22 years in power.

     

  • Gambia: President’s party seeks to block Barrow’s inauguration

    Gambia: President’s party seeks to block Barrow’s inauguration

    The Political Party of Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, filed a request on Friday with the Supreme Court for an injunction aimed at blocking the swearing in of his rival.

    Jammeh lost an election last month and has refused to accept his defeat.

    The question of whether Gambia can install opposition figure Adama Barrow as president is seen as a test case for African democracy in a region accustomed to coups and political unrest.

    Barrow, who won the poll and has received the support of the international community, has said he will go ahead with his inauguration on Jan. 19 despite Jammeh’s rejection of the result.

    Supreme Court Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle, confirmed receipt of the petition, which was filed by Jammeh’s Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC).

    “It is filed today with the court registrar,’’ said Fagbenle, who did not say when a decision on the petition might be made.

    Aziz Bensouda, the secretary general of the Gambia Bar Association, said an injunction would be unconstitutional.

    “The inauguration of the president-elect should be held when Jammeh’s term officially ends the court does not have any mandate to put an inauguration on hold,’’ he said.

    The election defeat of Jammeh, a former coup leader, after 22 years of increasingly authoritarian rule was celebrated across the tiny West African nation, and the incumbent initially accepted the result.

    However, in a u-turn a week later that drew international condemnation, he denounced what he claimed was widespread fraud.

    The APRC filed a challenge to the poll results, but the Supreme Court was unable to hear the petition after several judges failed to show up.

    Fagbenle adjourned the hearing until January 16.

    The Supreme Court, which rights campaigners say is heavily influenced by Jammeh, has not sat in over a year.

    Two chief justices have been dismissed since 2013 and one of them was jailed.

    The court hired four foreign judges from Nigeria and Sierra Leone to hear Jammeh’s appeal legal sources said that the judges had not yet arrived in Gambia.

    Regional bloc ECOWAS has sought to negotiate Jammeh’s peaceful departure and Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is leading a mediation mission to Gambia.

    Nigeria’s lower house of parliament approved a motion to authorise  Buhari to offer Jammeh asylum if he steps down.

    However, ECOWAS has also hinted at possible military action if he stays beyond the end of his term in office next week, raising the prospect of violence.

    The U.S. Department of State, which has already advised against travel to Gambia, warned American citizens to avoid the capital Banjul’s city centre.

    Embassy staff was required to be off the streets by 6 p.m. (1800 GMT) until further notice.

  • Jammeh appoints mediator despite hurdles

    Jammeh appoints mediator despite hurdles

    Gambia’s outgoing President Yayah Jammeh on Wednesday appointed a mediator to facilitate meetings between himself and president-elect Adama Barrow.

    Jammeh, who ruled the small West African nation with an iron fist for more than two decades, refuses to accept the result of the Dec. 1 presidential polls, which saw him, lose power.

    Barrow, a former real estate agent, who was little known before he announced his candidacy, is scheduled to take office on Jan. 19.

    The ruling party’s secretary general will mediate between Jammeh’s supporters and the opposition to “resolve any mistrust and issues,’’ Jammeh said in a televised address to the nation early Wednesday.

    He refuses to accept the election result because it was “full of arithmetic errors and anomalies, it also could not be credibly explained,’’ the outgoing president added.

    Jammeh ordered the justice minister and national assembly to draft a general amnesty bill, while issuing an executive order not to arrest or prosecute citizens for “acts or omissions’’ committed during the pre and post electoral period, between Nov. 1 and Jan. 31.

    The announcement comes a day after the Supreme Court postponed hearing a court petition filed by Jammeh to challenge the election results.

    The case was adjourned to Monday, since only one of a required minimum of five judges was present, the court’s registrar said.

    Several West African heads of state meanwhile postponed a meeting with Jammeh aimed at helping to resolve the political crisis from Wednesday to Friday.

  • Jammeh incommunicado – Ban Ki-Moon

    Embattled President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia has been unreachable by phone, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has revealed.

    “Despite efforts to reach President Yahya Jammeh by phone, the Secretary-General has not yet been able to speak with him,” Stephane Dujarric, Ban Ki-Moon’s spokesman, said in a statement in New York.

    The UN chief has however spoken with Adama Barrow, the President-elect to congratulate him on his electoral victory and to reiterate the commitment of the UN to a peaceful, timely, and orderly transfer of power.

    In a readout of the phone call to Barrow, Ban Ki- Moon said the UN welcomed and fully supported the December 17 decision of ECOWAS to support the safety of the president-elect.

    Ban advised the president-elect to urge his supporters to show restraint and not resort to violence.

    The secretary-general emphasized that the UN would support the will of the people in their election of Barrow as well as the future government in efforts to promote democracy and sustainable development of the country.

    The UN Security Council and the African Union have also expressed such support and have acknowledged Barrow as the president-elect after he defeated the incumbent, Jammeh, in the December 1 presidential election.

  • Gambian president Jammeh will not ‘step down’

    Gambian President Yahya Jammeh said he would not step down and condemned mediation by West African regional bloc ECOWAS that aims to get him to leave power after he lost a December 1 election to challenger Adama Barrow.

    The comments on state television late on Tuesday were a hardening of the veteran president’s position after days in which hopes mounted he could be persuaded to hand over power at the end of his mandate on January 18, when Barrow is due to be inaugurated.

    “I am not a coward. My right cannot be intimidated and violated. This is my position. Nobody can deprive me of that victory except the Almighty Allah,” Reuters quoted Jammeh as saying on the state television.

    “Already the ECOWAS meeting was a formality. Before they came, they had already said Jammeh must step down. I will not step down.”

    Jammeh initially accepted the results of an election whose outcome was seen across Africa as a moment of hope. He is accused by human rights groups of the detention, torture and killing of perceived opponents during his 22-year rule.

    On December 9, he reversed his position and said he would challenge in the country’s Supreme Court the results of an election he said was riddled with irregularities.

     

     

     

  • Buhari’s experience needed in Gambian crisis’

    Buhari’s experience needed in Gambian crisis’

    The coalition of seven political parties that produced The Gambia President-elect, Adama Barrow, is looking up to  President Muhammadu Buhari to deploy his vast experience, alongside other African leaders, to resolve the political logjam in the West African country.

    According to a statement issued by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Femi Adesina, one of the coalition members, Hamad Bah, spoke with the media during the high-level ECOWAS /AU/UN Joint Mission to The Gambia on Tuesday.

    He said: “We need the experience of President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria in many ways. Like President Jammeh, he is a former military officer, so he knows how the military thinks, and would be able to talk to him appropriately.

    “Again, President Buhari was in the opposition in Nigeria for about 12 years, before he won election in 2015. So, he also knows how the opposition thinks. He can feel what we feel. We are quite glad that President Buhari is here, it gives us a lot of hope.”

    The high-level team, in series of meetings that lasted the whole of Tuesday, met with President Jammeh, twice, conferred with Barrow, consulted with security chiefs, members of the diplomatic community, leadership of the electoral commission, and many other interest groups.

     

    The consensus was that President Jammeh needed to respect the result of the December 1 election, which he had earlier accepted, congratulated the winner, only to recant a week later, calling for fresh polls “to be conducted by a God-fearing electoral commission.”

    The Joint ECOWAS-AU-UN team, made of President Buhari, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia (current Chairperson of ECOWAS), President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, outgoing President John Mahama of Ghana, and Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, (UN Special Representative for West Africa), encouraged Jammeh to reconsider his rejection of the election results, citing “tallying errors” and his call for new elections.

    Jammeh was also urged to hand over power “within constitutional deadlines and in accordance with electoral laws of The Gambia.”

    President Johnson-Sirleaf said discussions on The Gambian impasse would continue, as ECOWAS leaders meet in Abuja this Saturda

  • Gambia’s ruling party challenges election result

    Gambia’s ruling party has filed a petition to challenge the result of the presidential election which saw Yahya Jammeh lose power after 22- year rule.

    The result of the December 1 polls should be annulled, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), said in a document handed to the registrar of the Supreme Court in the capital, Banjul.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the petition was filed after an African Union (AU) delegation met with Jammeh, hoping to persuade him to hand over power to President-elect Adama Barrow.

    Earlier on Tuesday, security forces blocked the entrance to the electoral commission in Banjul, while the Chief of Defence Staff vowed to remain loyal to Jammeh, indicating that the country’s military would help him stay in power.

    Jammeh last week announced his intention to challenge the election results, even though he had earlier conceded defeat to Barrow.

    The 51-year-old, who has ruled the West African country for 22 years, deployed heavily armed military and police to the streets of the capital.

  • Gambian Election: Jammeh accepts defeat

    Gambian Election: Jammeh accepts defeat

    Gambian ruler Yayah Jammeh has conceded defeat to rival Adama Barrow after the presidential polls, an aide to the Information Minister tells media on condition of anonymity on Friday.

    The electoral commission is yet to announce the final election results, but Barrow had shown a strong lead as 75 percent of votes were counted.

    Reports say Jammeh ruled the small West African nation for the past 22 years with an iron fist