IT is unusual for a sitting president of a country to be forcibly kicked out of his exalted seat by international troops for refusing to voluntarily relinquish power after losing an election. But that was practically what happened to Yahya Jammeh, The Gambian strong man, who was forced to abandon his sit-tight ambition on Saturday night following intense pressure from some West African heads of government and threat of an impending invasion by a United Nations-backed coalition of ECOWAS troops that were waiting to give him the marching orders. Other Africa’s Big Men deserve Jammeh’s treatment.
Jammeh’s fate follows what seems like an emerging trend in Africa, after a similar incident in Ivory Coast led to the ouster of Laurent Gbagbo and a takeover by the incumbent President, Alassane Quattara. While Jammeh was able to step down before an actual confrontation with the invading forces, Gbagbo, a professor of history who refused to learn from history, had to face a bombardment of some foreign troops led by France, which eventually arrested him while holed up in a bunker in one of the presidential lodges in Abidjan.
This is a clear message to African leaders, who are used to subverting the will of the people by ignoring the verdict at the ballot box to stay beyond their welcome, that it will no longer be business as usual. It is a lesson that should be learnt by Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is currently defying the people by illegally elongating his tenure, which expired last month. The message should also be clear to the likes of Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, who is illegally serving a third term, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, among other veterans of election manipulation and suppression of opposition to guarantee their stay in office in perpetuity.
In the twilight of his days in office, when Jammeh came up with the shenanigans about a 90-day emergency rule to guarantee his stay beyond his tenure, it was obvious to observers of events in The Gambia that he was only living in a fool’s paradise. With the authentic winner of the December 2016 presidential election, Adama Barrow, already sworn in at the country’s embassy in neighbouring Senegal, there was no way there would be room for two presidents in one country at the same time. But inordinate pride and ambition would not allow Jammeh to acknowledge that reality.
While Jammeh, a military officer who seized power through the barrel of the gun, was used to having his way in matters of governance in his country, it was obvious this time round that the tables had turned. His fate as the leader of The Gambia was no longer a matter to be treated as an internal affair of that country, but one that was of interest to regional powers and beyond; and with troops of the regional body, ECOWAS, massed around the country, it was only a matter of time before Jammeh’s nightmarish rule of 22 years was brought to an ignominious end.
Perhaps, Jammeh’s chicanery would not have attracted such international attention if he did not accept defeat in the December 1 election won by Barrow, a candidate of a coalition of opposition parties desperate to end his more than two decades of dictatorship. But in a twist that was as dramatic as his earlier acknowledgement of defeat, Jammeh turned around to disparage and reject the same election.
Jammeh’s volte face was all the more audacious – if not altogether odious – because he was trying to throw his country into an unnecessary political upheaval at a time when Ghana, a not-too-distant neighbour, was trying to project the continent positively by portraying itself as a leading light of democratic tradition in Africa. The country had also held a presidential election at about the same time during which the incumbent, John Mahama, conceded defeat to Nana Akuffo-Addo. But since it was his lot to be thrown out with ignominy, Jammeh rebuffed two ECOWAS mediatory missions, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, to persuade him to leave in peace.
Not minding his last minute message to the people of The Gambia, claiming that he decided to “relinquish the mantle of leadership” in good conscience and did not find it “necessary that a single drop of blood be shed,” it is obvious that Jammeh left against his will. By the time he was into negotiation with the Mauritanian leader, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, and his Guinean counterpart, Alpha Conde, he was already a general without troops, his army chief, Ousman Badjie, having joined the crowd hours earlier to celebrate the swearing-in of the new president. He had underestimated the resolve of the ECOWAS leaders to kick him out of office.
The humiliation should serve as a lesson to other sit-tight despots across African landscape. As the immediate United States President, Barack Obama, warned leaders at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in July 2015, “When a leader tries to change the rules in the middle of the game just to stay in office, he risks instability and strife, as we’ve seen in Burundi…And sometimes, you’ll hear a leader say, ‘Well, I’m the only person who can hold the nation together.’ If that’s true, then that leader has failed to truly build their nation.”
With Jammeh out of the way, Barrow has a task of restoring confidence in a country that is broken and shorn of hope by a dictatorship that brooked no opposition. He has to hit the ground running and create jobs for the teeming youth population, who have now resorted to escaping poverty by following the treacherous route of crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. Above all, he has to investigate the numerous cases of human rights abuses by Jammeh who, if possible, should be made to appear before the International Criminal Court as did Charles Taylor and Hissene Habre, both of whom have been convicted for crimes against humanity. Such an action will serve as a deterrent to other African leaders once they know that they will have to account for their deeds while in office.
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