Gambia: Why Jammeh must bow out
We understand that the Gambia’s security forces have taken over the headquarters of the country’s electoral commission to affirm President Jammeh’s refusal to accept his loss in recent elections after 22 years in power. He had initially conceded defeat to Mr. Adama Barrow who obtained 222,708 votes (43.3 percent) compared with his 208,487,487 (39.6 percent). […]
We understand that the Gambia’s security forces have taken over the headquarters of the country’s electoral commission to affirm President Jammeh’s refusal to accept his loss in recent elections after 22 years in power. He had initially conceded defeat to Mr. Adama Barrow who obtained 222,708 votes (43.3 percent) compared with his 208,487,487 (39.6 percent). The Gambian President changed his mind after questioning the validity of the count when the electoral commission changed some results even though it insists the outcome of the election was not affected.
Jammeh seized the electoral commission’s headquarters even after visiting West African leaders including President Mohammadu Buhari met him and tried to persuade him to step down for the new president-elect. The head of the regional bloc ECOWAS, Marcel de Souza, sees the warhead hovering over Gambia if Jammeh does not accept defeat now when he said “we would not rule out sending in troops. We have done it in the past” he told Radio France International, “we currently have troops in Guinea-Bissau with ECOMib mission. We have had troops in Mali. And therefore it is a possible solution”.
The Gambian president must quickly hand over power and save Gambia from a looming civil war that would further plunge hundreds and thousands of his country men and women into migrant and refugees’ ships on the Mediterranean route to Europe. It is unthinkable for this to happen now that thousands of refugees are fleeing from civil war and terror from the Middle East to Europe. The truth is that it has become increasingly difficult for Africans seeking refuge abroad from the same scourges as the Europeans to get asylum in Europe. The chilling danger for Africans trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe show-cased itself in June 2016 when 458 corpses of mostly African migrants and refugees including women and children from Jammeh’s Gambia were discovered on a boat that sank in the sea. According to a new report from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), about corpses of over 30 migrants were found in the desert in Niger in June 2016.
The point is that no peace-loving African president today would force his already economically desperate citizens to risk their lives on treacherous routes to enter Europe as migrants and refugees in order to be far away from Civil war and terror brought about in their country by the greed and foolish ambition of one man.
Jammeh should spare Gambians who have over the years been migrating out of Gambia from his repression further agony by letting peace and democracy reign in his country by handing over to Barrow. Only recently a Tunisian man was found guilty by a court in Sicily of causing the sinking of a 278 long (90ft) boat in which 700 migrants died in April 2015. Many of the victims had been crammed into the hold of the fishing boat and locked inside. And there were from four African countries including Gambia.
The EU member nations faced with the most significant influx of migrants and refugee in his history is systematically resisting the flood despite the fact that they have a moral responsibility to help people fleeing murderous regimes. This demand from them to make a distinction between refugees and economic migrants. In September this year the EU ministers approved a controversial plan to relocate 120,000 migrants across the continent over the next few years with binding quotas. But Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary opposed the scheme.
The EU has been unable to harmonies its asylum policy as about 28 member states , each out of self-preservation has its own police force and judiciary. The European states are at present competing to be the least attractive to migrants. There is as at now no safe and legal way for refugees to reach European countries for the illegal and dangerous Aegean migration route to be closed. In a situation where the EU Countries are not willing to enforce the rules and obligations they agreed on, there is little hope for migrants and refugees to Europe.
The truth is that the refugee crisis in Europe is stretching economic resources, radicalizing politics and straining the post-world war institutions created to keep Europe at peace and united. This is the reality of the world today and Jammeh owe Gambians a legacy of peace and democracy to preserve their dignity as men and women of honour and self-respect. Not as migrants and refugees fleeing from war and starvation which his present course would bring.
Yerimah wrote this piece from Abuja.