Ademola Araoye

By Ademola Araoye

As often, President Yayyah Jammeh of Gambia, aka “His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Doctor Yahya AJJ Jammeh Babili Mansa”, has thrown the lime light on his enclave again. It is for all the wrong reasons. When last he was in the news, he had unilaterally declared Gambia an Islamic Republic. Now he has reneged on his acceptance of the outcome of the polls conducted by an elections Commission that he appointed. Given his past and the deficit in public trust, President Jammeh had consciously commissioned an 83 year old man from retirement to oversee the electoral process, ensure transparency and also boost public confidence in the outcome of the elections. The final official results of the 1 December, 2016 elections showed Adama Barrow, the candidate of the seven opposition party coalition under the umbrella of the United Democratic Party (UDP), won the presidential mandate by a 43.3% plurality. The incumbent Jammeh got 39.6%. A third contestant, Mammah Kandeh, received 17.1% of the votes. Consistent with emerging trends in West Africa, Yayyah Jammeh threw the country into a frenzy of celebrations when he uncharacteristically conceded defeat and publically congratulated Adama Barrow.

That was even before the official poll results were declared. The epiphany didn’t last too long. Days later, accusing the National Elections Commission of being under foreign influence and claiming that the elections had been marred by “serious and unacceptable abnormalities”, Yayyah Jammeh declared the outcome of the elections null and void. Meanwhile, the President-elect, Adama Barrow, has announced plans to declare himself president on 18 January. It is notable that after Jammeh’s controversial victory in the presidential elections in 2011, African leaders and the regional body, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), declined to validate his victory, noting that voters and the opposition had been “cowed by repression and intimidation”. In a re-enactment of the same scenario five years after, Yayyah Jammeh is confronting the spirit of the times and running against tide of history.

The pathologies of bad governance, although pervasive across the continent, are often intense in very small political entities. Developments in the Gambia therefore had always provided insights into some of the horrendous realities of bad governance in post colonial Africa. This is exemplified by the fact that the country has had only two presidents since independence in 1965. Yayyah Jammeh came to power through a military coup d’etat in 1994, over throwing Dauda Jawara who himself ruled for 29 years. Gambia is one of the underbelly states in Africa. It is largely dependent on aid. Total revenue and grants in 2016 was projected at D12.994 billion, which represents an increment of 16 percent over 2015 figure of D11.197 billion. A million or two dollars from Sweden or Qatar makes a difference in state policy. For example, if bored and aging Scandinavian female tourists would not come to relieve their boredom because the Gambian administration frowns against public touting of Gambia as a land of Sun, Sand and Sex in the West, and would hype concerns about human rights abuses, Jammeh can metamorphose into a religious Islamist extremist to assure the flow of petrol dollar from the Middle East. For good measure, he can unilaterally officially declare Gambia an Islamic Republic. It does not matter that there is a significant 8 per cent Christian minority in the country.

With a land area of 10,689 square kilometers (4,127 sq mi) and a population of 1,882,450, the Gambia, almost surrounded by Senegal with a tiny coastal outlet to the sea, is almost a miniature enclave state. Gambia has five major ethnic groups. The Mandinka constitute 42 per cent of the population, the Foula 18 per cent, Wolof/Serer 16 per cent, the Joula 10 per cent and the Serahuli 9 per cent. The other 5 per cent is made of other Africans and others. Passed on in 1765 to the British by the Portuguese adventurers who first laid claim to the banks of the River Gambia to pursue the slave trade in the region, the antecedents and character of Gambia define it as a representative outcome of the gross anomaly of the evolution of African statehood. Like the modal African state arbitrarily staked out for competing European powers by cigar smoking schizophrenic European adventurers in Africa, it has been difficult to define an essence for these concrete myths of states.

For the hazardous leadership thrown up by the very malaise of African contact with the external world, they inherited personal delusions of false grandeur in validating their rule of these abysmal state spaces. These are all typified in Lieutenant Yayyah Jammeh, a young coupist, who took advantage of the khaki uniform to appropriate the political and economic space accidentally carved out by hegemonic forces. The pan Africanist rhetoric and rantings are designed to legitimize a stolen mandate of the people. Gambia is therefore a real laboratory of sorts of the interaction of clashing opposites, an entrenched past against a new progressive vision of emancipated spaces, in the evolved and evolving African realities. It is not surprising that Gambia has remained the playground of sit tight leaders since its independence in 1965. It is not inconsistent with expectations that Jammeh has demonstrated severe paranoi in handling the unexpected challenge of a democratic transition of his perceived personal power. Gambia, to all intents, had become a personal fiefdom of the eccentric ruler.

With a complex sociological construction of five major ethnic groups that are mainly extensions of main tribes from Senegal, the Casamance of Senegal, Guinea Bissau and Guinea Conakry, Gambia’s geo-physical location as an enclave within Segal and ethnic mosaic have significant implications for its internal politics as well as the politics of its immediate environment and economy. Gambia was, in light of the insurrection in the Casamance, invaded by a frenetic Senegal in 1981 to reverse a coup d’etat that portended serious consequences for the capacity of the MFDC to wage war. Yet, that did not succeed in preventing the Senegalese irredentist Movement of Democratic Forces of the Casamance (MFDC) from destabilizing the Senegalese region. Nearly all Gambia’s imports come through Senegal. Senegal can literally strangulate the economy by blockading truck movements into the enclave. Economic relations have not been very smooth in recent months. Earlier this year Senegal’s blockade over a border dispute almost collapsed the country’s economy. Meanwhile, observers note that Senegal has unequivocally denounced Jammeh’s annulment of the result. In its own way though, the Gambia can make life a little inconvenient for Senegal, especially as there is constant suspicion of Senegalese hegemonic intentions in the country.

Gambia, with an unbroken history of authoritarian rule since 1965, provides lessons on the stark responses of reactionary forces to progressive strides in democratic consolidation on the continent, especially in West Africa. However, Yayyah Jammeh’s equally confused and belated resistance to the march of African democracy is not an aberration. He is in the good company of many so perceived respectable peers of African looders (looting leaders). There have been two major responses by conservative forces who seek to entrench themselves in state houses. This includes ensuring that their children take over in dynastic succession when the pass away. A third approach are those who have institutionalized winning through a permanent rigging machinery. They are unapologetic about their transparent aim to die in the state house. Where all else fail, mostly through miscalculations or human error or even the force of the logic of changing times that the autocrat is not to equipped to comprehend, they resort to the Mugabe nuclear option. They simply denounce the outcome of the elections, reorder a new one, sit tight or allow credit and attention seeking international do gooders to negotiate a meaningless governing formula. It is a tactic of the autocrat to buy time. Sooner than later when the uproar has died down and the country is bounced off below the radar the bemused autocrat upends the compromise arrangement. The opposition is often in the process discredited. Life goes on.

Jammeh

In almost all scenarios of planned term elongation or term abrogation though, the first casualty is human rights, especially press freedom, freedom of association and the associated freedom of speech. In many cases, incarceration of opponents are complemented with political assassination. In relation to this, the Gambia Daily Observer highlights that  even those in Jammeh’s inner circle, who quietly expressed reservations on the rash way in which he was handling power after the coup were quickly imprisoned. They included the Vice Head of State and Interior Minister. Both of them soon died in prison. Jammeh’s first Finance Minister was later found burnt to death in a car in a town he had never visited; and The Point newspaper publisher and Gambian Press Union President, Deyda Hydara, was shot in the head on a street in Banjul.

Nigeria also witnessed a lot of many such unresolved political murders in the approach to Obasanjo’s third term project. The Democratic Republic of Congo is undergoing the same. Paul Biya took care of business in Cameroon a long time ago. Tom Mboya died in an unresolved motor accident in Kenya a long time ago. In Guinea Bissau, Nino Viera eliminated many of perceived Ballanta opponents. Some have often wondered what happened to Diallo Telli in Guinea Conakry.

The first approach to constitutional term elongation or term abrogation, abrogation being a form of political nuclear option, is the attempt to amend the Constitution to achieve further and further term elongations. This is the strategy of choice for those looders who are concerned to project a modicum of sensibility to democratic procedures. Conveniently focusing on procedural dimensions of democracy, they eschew its substantive tenets. In the final analysis where internal progressive forces are weak or factionalized along ethnic lines, reflecting a weak national consciousness, these usurpers often have a final laugh manipulating the weakness of the fragile national will. In multi-national states, as most of Africa, the last bastion is appeal to ethnic sentiments. Donald trump perfected this approach in the recent elections in the United States in a well coded phrase understood and massively responded by whites. In all cases, they seek to hoodwink the world. Depending on the calculus and mood of key international and elite national interest driven gerdarmerie states, these impostors may or may not get away with subverting the core democratic tenets. Accordingly, these processes have implication for foreign policy and international engagements.

The best known examples of this preemptive constitutional tinkering are Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Sassou Nguesso of Congo (Brazzaville) and Joseph Kabilla in the Democratic Republic Congo. In the peculiar African environment of fawning masses who are dominated by gamblers, rogues, coupists, adventurists, and autocrats, these all pass for honorable statesmen. This gambling with the lives of the state and destiny of society, this constitutional tinkering process is fraught with uncertainties as it is critically dependent or assured only with the connivance of a Legislature that should be mostly aligned with the sit tight president. The most notable of such is former President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. Obasanjo invested trillions of Naira to assure the acquiescence of both Houses of the Legislature. While railing against corruption in the country, in broad daylight sacks of money from the Obasanjo’s presidency were received by legislators to advance the infamous third term project.

Thereafter the legislators reneged on passing the required constitutional amendment. Also, given the stature of Nigeria, there were foreign policy implications to the personal ambition of Obasanjo for an elongated tenure in Aso Rock. A major victim of this was Charles Taylor who was handed over to the ICC, breaking Nigeria’s promise to provide the renegade with asylum. The point here is the devaluation of the integrity of Nigeria’s solemn promise to facilitate peace in a very troubled time because of the ambition of one man.

The second approach to term elongation is outright rigging of the polls through either the connivance of the electoral body or manipulation of the electoral process. It is a far less riskier option. It often requires the collaboration of the military whose command hierarchy is often dominated by the cronies from the same ethnic stock of the aspiring life president. It is the strategic of choice in less sophisticated political environments. Civil society is often weak and the politics of the alimentary canal is a dominant tendency in the political class. The failure of such a gamble only leaves a Mugabe style nuclear option; a final option. The most effective approach is to denounce the results before they are declared, followed by a crackdown: declaration of a state of emergency, arrests of vocal and prominent opponents and the suppression of public dissent. In the past, Yayyah Jammeh had perfected this.

West Africa has witnessed significant progress in the entrenchment of civilian democratic transitions from Senegal, through Nigeria, Ghana, Cape Verdes, Benin Republic, Mali, Sierra Leone etc. In Burkina Faso popular protest had successfully dislodged a long term impostor Blais Compore, who had also murdered Thomas Sankara, a national hero. Against this background of advances in a culture of democratic consolidations. Yayyah Jammeh would seem to have been infused with a fleeting courage of associating with the current tide of history. Yet with unfortunate mismanagement of the evolving critical watershed in Gambia’s history by the emerging new forces, Yayyah Jammeh retreated to the familiar political tricks book. He chose the nuclear option.

The emerging lesson in Gambia is simply that political transitions are delicate periods. It may be speculated that a simple understanding of and explicit respect for the sensibilities of a long term sitting president defeated at the polls could have staved off the dramatic turn of events. The exuberance and euphoria of victory has to be tempered with realism. Power transitions are fraught with many dangers. It is critically important to project a role for all in the next dispensation, at least initially for both the vanquished and the victorious, The South African model remains a classic in assuring the necessary stability to undertake necessary evaluations to underpin fundamental restructuring of an old dispensation. Threats don’t elicit confidence and cooperation in difficult transitions. The approach of President Buhari, encouraged by key national actors and friends from the international community is another exemplar of managing delicate transitions of such magnitude. In Nigeria, the rule of the Peoples Democratic Party had brought Nigeria to its knees. The Boko Haram seemed unstoppable. It has turned out that the PDP that ruled since 1999 had a lot of reason to fear the loss of power. Deft management of a potentially explosive situation with necessary guarantees to the outgoing president proved prudent.

This week ending Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the acting head of the Joint Economic Community of West African States working in concert with the African Union and United Nations (ECOWAS-AU-UN) team announced that there is no break through yet for Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh to quit. The high powered team comprising President Muhammadu Buhari, President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, outgoing President John Mahama of Ghana, and Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, (UN Special Representative for West Africa), urged Jammeh to reconsider his rejection of the election results. It is assuring to that the team has maintained a strong position that Jammeh hand over power “within constitutional deadlines, and in accordance with electoral laws of The Gambia.”

Buhari, Sirleaf, Koroma and Mahama holding a meeting with Jammeh

It is important that the mediation, hopefully does not degenerate into negotiations on a joint governing formulae, and that it be sensitive to the ever present challenges of ethnic dimensions of the current challenges. Efforts on the side to assure that all ethnic groups are integrated into the new coalition may be critical given that Mr Jammeh managed to alienate the Mandinkas, the largest ethnic group in The Gambia. It is disturbing that Jammeh’s Chief of the Defense Staff has reportedly vowed to remain loyal to the country’s longtime leader, indicating that Gambia’s military would help the autocrat stay in power. As part of the cult of leadership in autocratic settings, this is not surprising. The situation gets dicier if the composition of the military hierarchy are from Yayah Jammeh’s minority group. Given the stakes and uncertainties about potential implications of a profound changes that the new dispensation would import for the military, it would be prudent to encourage the military hierarchy to maintain their republican outlook and their neutrality.

Finally, Africa must be wary of foreign reportage that seem to encourage military intervention in the Gambia. While Yayyah Jammeh may have demonstrated profound eccentricity on many issues, he mistakenly did a few right things that may not have endeared him to everyone, especially in the West. African leaders must navigate this challenge with the utmost tact needed to shove a bull out of a china shop.

Ademola Araoye is a former Nigerian diplomat and a retired official of the United Nations. Currently a Visiting Professor associated with the SARCHi chair on African Diplomacy and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, Araoye is author of critically acclaimed books including Cote d’Ivoire: The Conundrum of a Still Wretched of the Earth and Sources of Conflict in the Post-Colonial African State. He is a regular contributor to TheNEWS magazine