- Suffers set-back at Supreme Court
The Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) has given the embattled President of The Gambia, Mr.
Yahya Jammeh, till midnight tomorrow to vacate office and hand over
power to the country’s President-Elect, Mr. Adama Barrow, or be ousted
by force, THISDAY has learnt.
Though details of the planned military
intervention by ECOWAS in The Gambia if Jammeh refuses to vacate office
for Barrow on Thursday remains sketchy, THISDAY learnt that ECOWAS has
perfected plans to install the president-elect.
Efforts by Jammeh to erect a legal
hurdle in the way of the ECOWAS-backed inauguration of Barrow suffered a
serious setback yesterday as the country’s Supreme Court declined to
hear an application by his party to that effect.
Last Thursday, the country’s ruling
Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) filed an
application for an interlocutory injunction seeking to stop the
inauguration of Mr. Barrow as President on January 19.
But the Chief Justice of the Gambia, Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle refused to grant the application.
Barrow was declared winner of the
December 1, 2016 presidential election. Jammeh, who had initially
accepted defeat by congratulating Barrow, suddenly recanted a week later
saying he would challenge the election results at the apex court.
His recant threw the country into confusion amid intervention by African leaders suing for a peaceful transition.
The African Union (AU) and ECOWAS have pledged to withdraw their recognition of Jammeh as President after Thursday.
But Nigerian officials played down the
planned military intervention by the sub-region’s power block last
night, saying ECOWAS still hoped Jammeh would respect himself and leave
office by tomorrow night.
“From what I gathered, they are
extending the olive branch till midnight of January 18th. If he does not
(handover power) by 19th, the troops will take over,” a Ministry of
Foreign Affairs told THISDAY last night.
Asked about the composition of troops
and Nigeria’s strategic role, the source responded: “I don’t have an
idea of the troops but they are from ECOWAS.”
Speaking to THISDAY, however, the
Director of Army Public Relations, Brig-Gen. Sani Usman, said he was not
aware of plans for military intervention, explaining that such issues
fall squarely under the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
the federal government.
Usman added that the Army could not
comment on the matter. “We are not at the forefront of solving the
political problem in The Gambia; we are soldiers,” he said.
An official at the Ministry of Defence,
Abuja also could not provide an insight on the level of preparedness by
the Nigerian military.
But as the inauguration day draws
closer, tension appears to have gripped Gambians, with many struggling
to leave the tiny West African nation.
Efforts by ECOWAS leaders led by
President Muhammadu Buhari to persuade Jammeh to relinquish power has
failed to yield any tangible result, even as Barrow relocated to
Senegal, where reports suggest he would be brought into The Gambia by
ECOWAS troops for the inauguration on Thursday.
Supreme Court refuses to hear Jammeh
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court yesterday
refused to hear an application by Jammeh’s party, APRC, to stop the
inauguration of Barrow as president on Thursday.
In the application signed by its lawyer,
Mr. Edward Gomez, the APRC asked the court for an order of
interlocutory injunction preventing the chief judge of the country from
inaugurating or swearing in Barrow as the President of The Gambia until
the determination of the election petition.
The party also asked for an order
“restraining, the President from preparing, arranging, organising,
conducting, partaking or participating in any manner or form in the
swearing-in and /or inauguration of Adama Barrow as President of the
Republic of The Gambia on January 19, 2017.”
The APRC further prayed the court for an
order restraining the country’s National Assembly, its members and any
organ of government from partaking in the inauguration of Barrow.
It asked the court to stop Barrow from
presenting himself to the country’s chief judge or judiciary to be
sworn-in as president of The Gambia.
After hearing the application yesterday,
the Chief Judge, Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle, a Nigerian, refused to
grant the prayers that would have effectively extended the tenure of
Jammeh.
The court declined to grant the requests
on the ground that the application listed the Chief Judge, who is the
only Supreme Court Judge at the moment, as a party in the application.
Fagbenle, therefore, ruled that he could not grant an order against himself.
He said he would remove himself from the
suit in the interest of fairness. He then adjourned the election
petition until the court is fully constituted.
The court had ruled penultimate Monday
that it could not consider the election petition filed by the APRC
because the quorum of five judges to hear the petition could not be met
because Nigeria and Sierra Leone declined the Gambian request to send
judges to sit at the Supreme Court
The Gambia relies on judges and other
judicial officials from other West African countries to help fill its
drought of top officials in its judiciary.
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