Tag: Barrow

Security operatives have arrested a non-duty soldier of The Gambia Armed Forces after he was arrested with a pistol inside the main mosque in Banjul where new President Adama Barrow was performing the Jumat prayers.

The soldier was identified as Baboucarr Njie and is now being interrogated by personnel of the ECOWAS Military in The Gambia (ECOMIG) over his motive for carrying the pistol inside the mosque.

The incident took place at Banjul’s main King Fahd mosque where the Gambian leader had joined Muslim worshippers for congregational prayers.

Security sources said ECOMIG is not ruling out foul play.

Eyewitnesses said the suspect was searched by ECOMIG troops as he entered the mosque during which a gun was discovered inside a bag he was carrying.

It was not immediately known if the gun was loaded.

Although his motive still remains unclear, he reportedly told his interrogators that he was with the intention of handing the pistol over to President Barrow’s military aide, Massaneh Kinteh, who was not at the mosque at the time of the incident.

Other worshippers who witnessed the incident said President Barrow had left the mosque immediately after the congregational prayers as the suspect was handcuffed and led away.

It came  days after ECOMIG commanders said they were scaling back the number of foreign intervention troops in the country from 7, 000 to 500, citing an improved security climate following a protracted political crisis sparked by the disputed results of the December 1 election.

Barrow’s predecessor, Yahya Jammeh, had refused to concede the election despite his defeat by the former, plunging the country into a nerve-racking political crisis.

•President nominates woman VP

President Adama Barrow will arrive in Banjul, the Gambian capital today to begin functioning from the Presidential palace, one of his advisers said last night.
Another aide to Barrow also yesterday accused former president Yahya Jammeh of emptying the state’s coffers by plundering millions of dollars in his final days in power.
“Over two weeks, over 500 million dalasi ($11 million) were withdrawn” by Jammeh, Mai Fatty said. “As we take over, the government of The Gambia is in financial distress.
“The coffers are largely empty.”
After 22 years of iron-fisted rule, Jammeh refused to recognise the result of a December 1 election won by Barrow, triggering a weeks-long political crisis.
But under the threat of a regional military intervention, he chose exile in Equatorial Guinea, which is not party to the International Criminal Court.
That means he cannot be extradited in the event he is charged with crimes against humanity or other serious offences.
Barrow’s spokesman Halifa Sallah told AFP on Sunday that Barrow aimed to set up a truth and reconciliation committee, his “preferred method” of dealing with grievances against the regime, though many Gambians want Jammeh and his entourage to be prosecuted.
Sections of the security services were under Jammeh’s personal control and are responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary detention, rights groups say.
Sallah added that Barrow had written a letter that “indicated that (Jammeh) would be treated as an ex-president, with the same rights and privileges as Dawda Jawara,” the country’s only other president since independence.
That includes immunity from prosecution, according to The Gambia’s constitution, unless two thirds of the national assembly votes to assert that legal proceedings are in the public interest.
On Monday, staff were working to ensure the presidential palace was safe for Barrow to enter.
While he is eager to return “as soon as possible”, according to Fatty, “the state of security in The Gambia is still fragile.”
He said that Barrow hoped some of the 7,000 troops mobilised earlier this month by Senegal
and four other nations would remain in place after his arrival.
A military aide to Barrow was due to be dispatched “to work with the security chiefs” of the army and police and finalise plans for his entry into the country, Sallah said.
Gambians looked on in disbelief at the empty State House in Banjul on Sunday night, unable to believe it had finally been vacated, while cheering on and thanking the Senegalese troops.
“I was born and raised in Banjul. Good riddance!” said Mohammed Jallow, a 54-year-old businessman.
“Barrow has a lot of work to do. He’s inheriting a very bad situation,” he added.
The Gambia’s army chief said Monday the regional troops were “brothers” welcomed with open arms.
Chief of defence staff Ousman Badjie told AFP the Malian, Senegalese, Togolese, Nigerian and Ghanaian soldiers “are our brothers,” adding “we are happy that they are here to complement our efforts.”
But critics have raised concerns over a statement issued by the United Nations, regional bloc ECOWAS and the African Union that seemed to offer Jammeh comfortable guarantees.
The statement said “no legislative measures” would be taken that would infringe the “dignity, security, safety and rights” of Jammeh or his family, noting that he could return when he pleased and that property “lawfully” belonging to him would not be seized.
That clause will be especially contentious after Jammeh was accused of plundering The Gambia’s coffers.
But Reed Brody, a lawyer involved in the landmark conviction of former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre, said Gambian law could not halt a prosecution if the evidence against Jammeh was serious enough.
“International law prohibits amnesties for atrocities such as torture and crimes against humanity, and internal United Nations rules even prevent the UN from agreeing to any such amnesty,” he told AFP by email.
Barrow has chosen a woman as his Vice President.
Opposition spokesman Halifa Sallah, told reporters in Banjul yesterday, that Fatoumatta Tambajang, a prominent pro-democracy activist, was part of the opposition coalition that unseated Jammeh.
She is touted as one of the main brains behind the formation of a coalition going into the December 1, 2016 polls.
Mrs Tambajang, who was a former United Nations Development Program (UNDP) gender/development expert, also served as a cabinet minister in the government of Jammeh. She was Minister of Health, Social Welfare and Women’s Affairs.
Mrs Tambajang has been a vocal critic of Jammeh regime and has repeatedly condemned the arrest and detention of members of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) and the heavy crack down on opposition.
She will take the role occupied by another female, Isatou Njie-Saidy, Jammeh’s long serving deputy who resigned in the wake of the political impasse.

President of The Gambia, Adama Barrow, yesterday said he was returning to his country following Yahya Jammeh’s announcement to step down as president.
Barrow on his twitter handle, @adama_barrow, said “As Yahya Jammeh officially stepped down from office — I will be returning to my homeland, the Republic of The Gambia. #NewGambia.”
Barrow also told the Associated Press in an interview on Saturday that he would enter Gambia once a security sweep had been completed.
The new president also said that Jammeh would be leaving within hours on Saturday and told Gambians who had fled the country that they now had “the liberty to return home”.
Barrow on Thursday took the oath of office as Gambia’s new president.
He was sworn-in about 5p.m. Senegalese time at the Gambian High Commission in Dakar, Senegal.
Barrow succeeded Yahya Jammeh, who lost in the Dec. 1 presidential election and refused to vacate office when his 22-year rule expired midnight on Thursday.
West African mediators spent several hours in talks with him on Friday after military forces of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) stopped actions to remove Jammeh by force to allow last-minute negotiations.
Jammeh, however, on state TV yesterday, announced that he would step down in the interest of the Gambian people adding that it was his duty to “preserve at every instant” their lives.
He was also reported to have left the State House to join President Alpha Conda of Guinea to the airport to begin a new life in exile.

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.

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.