Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (L), Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai
Koromah (C) and Gambia's Yahya Jammeh stand at the Felix
Houphouet-Boigny fundation in Yamoussoukro on Febuary 27, 2013 after the
opening ceremony of the ECOWAS ordinary summit. | AFP/Issouf
Sanogo/Getty Images
There
are several reasons why the West African regional grouping ECOWAS
should not allow Yahyah Jammeh to stay in office beyond January 19, but
three stand out – a bad precedent, violation of the will of majority of
the Gambian people and violation of regional norms and standards.
Gambian dictator, Yahya Jammeh, has been
in power for nearly 23 years. As a 29-year-old army officer, he
overthrew the country’s first president, Dawda Jawara, in a bloodless
coup on July 22, 1994. In 1996, he won the first of four successive
elections to serve as president of the republic. Had he won the December
1, 2016 elections, he would have been elected for a record fifth term.
He lost. In a commendable but largely unexpected move, Jammeh announced
on national television that he would support President-elect Adama
Barrow, a former real estate agent who won the election. Then acting
true to type, he did a volte face – rejected the results and sought to
reconstitute the electoral commission he appointed in the first place.
West Africa’s economic and political
bloc, ECOWAS, decided to send a two-member mediation team led by
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari to resolve the lingering crisis. At
the time of this writing, they had not managed to convince Jammeh to do
the right thing. Meantime, the outgoing president – now apparently an
advocate of rule of law – has decided to approach the Supreme Court to
nullify the vote and prevent the planned inauguration of Adama on
January 19.
There are several reasons why ECOWAS
should not allow Jammeh to stay in office beyond January 19 but I will
stick with three – bad precedent, violation of the will of majority of
the Gambian people and violation of regional norms and standards. Let me
begin with the first – bad precedent.
Recent elections in Ghana and Nigeria
demonstrate that it is possible for incumbents to loose elections in
free and fair contests. In both instances, the incumbent simply bowed to
the will of the people and turned over power. Ghana learned from
Nigeria. A couple of African states have been experimenting with the
idea of removal of term limits. Since 1998, about 30 states attempted to
do this. Zambia’s Frederick Chiluba and Malawi’s Bakili Mulizi failed
while Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and, most recently,
Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza succeeded after weeks of – to use Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti’s phrase – “sorrow, tears and blood.” My point is –
whether good or bad, leaders in Africa tend to copy one another.
Allowing Jammeh to remain in power beyond January 19 will send a message
to others that it is okay to override the decision of properly
constituted election management bodies and then proceed to reap from
such decisions. That would be bad for democracy and Africa.
Closely connected to the point
immediately above is the fact that a President Jammeh beyond January 19
clearly violates the will of majority of the people of The Gambia.
Regardless of how he feels about the outcome of the vote, Yahya Jammeh
has to be told in clear terms that democracy is about the will of the
majority. Given his previous comments about his “divine authority” to
rule for a “billion years,” it does appear that he probably feels
entitled to lead his people regardless of what they think. It bears
recalling that Jammeh was one of two West African leaders that opposed
the idea of restricting presidents within the region to two terms in
office in 2015. Their opposition meant that ECOWAS did not proceed with
that idea.
Finally, keeping Jammeh in power beyond
January 19 violates the AU African Charter on Democracy, Elections and
Governance to which his country is signatory. Among other things, the
Charter seeks to “promote adherence by each state party to the universal
values and principles of democracy and respect for human rights.”
Article 23 of this Charter specifically defines “unconstitutional change
of government” to include “any refusal by an incumbent government to
relinquish power to the winning party or candidate after free, fair and
regular elections.”
Closer to home, Protocol A/SP1/12/01 on
Democracy and Good Governance Supplementary to the Protocol Relating to
the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution,
Peacekeeping and Security to which 15 heads of state, including Yahya
Jammeh, signed off in 2001 specifically prescribes “zero tolerance for
power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means.” It also
requires candidates who lose elections to concede defeat (article 9).
ECOWAS has a responsibility to keep a
precedent it clearly established in the case of Cote d’Ivoire. As
readers may recall, Alassane Quatarra won that country’s second round
presidential elections in 2010. In an interesting twist, the
Constitutional Court led by incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo’s ally
cancelled the results in many areas in which Quatarra had won thereby
handing power back to Gbagbo. ECOWAS rejected this decision and even
rejected a power-sharing deal brokered by the African Union. The Gambia
case merits similar treatment. Happily, this time, the African Union
appears to be in support of ECOWAS – its Peace and Security Council
decided on January 13 not to recognize Jammeh as President of the Gambia
from 19 January.
I hope this stands.
Okeoma Ibe is a lawyer and gender
expert from Nigeria. Until recently, she was a member of the steering
committee of West African Think-Tank (WATHI). This article was first
published on Pambazuka News.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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