By Lamin J Darboe
He was the boy who would be president and the man who attained that status notwithstanding the improbability of 01 December 2016 and its culmination in presidential ascendancy on 19 January 2017. In the intervening years between boyhood and No. 1 Marina Parade, nothing attendant to the vicissitudes of life was compelling enough to alter the destiny mapped for His Excellency Mr Adama Barrow, President of the Republic of The Gambia (His Excellency).
In that role, and at public expense, he is dined, clothed, pampered to the hilt, and housed in the grandeur of the colonial governors in a publicly owned seaboard home next to the blue Atlantic waters, the golden sands, and the soothing breezes that descend on the official presidential abode
And so he was in New York with an oversize delegation of cabinet colleagues, political hangers on to grace UNGA 2024, seventy nine years from the first General Assembly in London when European colonialism was dying and American and Soviet ascendancy as the global military behemoths was being cemented after the seismic changes occasioned by the Second World War on the principal land theatre of that hubristic conflict.A conflict that sealed the fate of the thousand year Reich and redrew the geographies of global influence.
When that first UNGA was held in January 1946, His Excellency was not a citizen of the world. Eight decades later, he stood at the podium of the majestic Manhattan headquarters of the United Nations in New York City to articulate The Gambia’s panoramic domestic and international world view before the Secretary General, their Majesties, Heads of State and Government, excellences’ one and all. That phenomenal level of personal transformation in the fortunes of a village boy calls for celebration and thanksgiving for the very rare honour bestowed on His Excellency by the people of The Gambia.
Waxing lyrical about his government’s human rights record before the global assemblage of potentates and his domestic audience thanks to the magic of instantaneous communication, His Excellency contended: “At the national level, The Gambia remains steadfast in its commitment to promoting human rights and establishing a vibrant democratic environment. The establishment of a National Human Rights Commission and entrenchment of a free, independent, and impartial judiciary provide a solid framework and a sense of security for our citizens, thus ensuring they have a place to seek redress for injustice. I am happy to report that, since 2017, The Gambia has neither recorded a single political prisoner, nor has any journalist or human rights activist been jailed. Proudly too, in August 2024, The Gambia was recognised as one of Africa’s leading defenders of freedom of expression and ranked third in Article 19’s Global Expression Report 2024. We will continue striving to better our situation”
The above, from His Excellency’s speech (see p. 9), is substantially sound and commendations are due him for abiding by the law in this critical area of speech and human rights.Overall the speech was well written and delivered, and fairly well received by a cross section of Gambians.
As the global jamboree progressed in the city that never sleeps, with His Excellency attending to official commitments, a purely internal nonstory was breaking in the NPP’s 2026 pre-election battlefield. According to The Voice Newspaper, Muhammed Jah, the distinguished Chief Executive Officer of QGroup – to whom Local Government Minister Amat N. K. Bah once said: “Muhammed, if The Gambia should have ten people of your kind then the country would have advanced to another stage”(The Point Newspaper, 08 April, 2024) – was chosen by His Excellency as the NPP’s presidential candidate for 2026. This was a long running rumor but however viewed, it is a mere internal party affair.
Soon after the story was published, there were media reports His Excellency’s legal practitioners contacted The Voice and demanded a prominently positioned retraction and an apology to avoid a claim for “libel” and “defamation” at the High Court.
It appears to elude the lawyers that except for impeachment, their Client is insulated from civil and criminal processes and the logical corollary is that the immunity principle precludes him from initiating legal proceedings against anyone, including The Voice Newspaper. “Except as provided in subsection (2), no civil or criminal proceedings shall be instituted or continued against any person while holding or performing the functions of office of President in respect of anything done or omitted to be done by him or her whether in an official or a private capacity”(see section 69 of the Constitution of The Gambia, 1997)
His Excellency has no authority to strip himself of immunity as that is a sovereignty principle imposed and controlled by the Constitution.
The more egregious aspect of this nonstory is the behavior of The Gambia Police Force (GPF), an institution that chronically resists governing itself in conformity with the rule of law. Under section 4 of the Police Act, “the police shall be employed in The Gambia for the preservation of law and order, the protection of property, the prevention and detection of crime, the apprehension of offenders and the due enforcement of all laws and regulations with which they are charged”.
When I visited Momodou Justice Darboe at the Police Headquarters in Banjul on Friday, the Gambia Press Union Executive and I were given the assurance by a Police Commissioner in his office that he would be released within two hours. He spent Friday night at Police Headquarters and was only released Saturday morning after some 48 hours of unlawful detention.
If anything, this rather confounding matter has no criminal aspect to it and resides compellingly outside the competence of the GPF to even touch. The arrest and detention of MomodouJustice Darboe was unlawful and he should consider instituting a claim for damages against the GPF.
Police officers, especially at the commanding heights, must note they will not be celebrated for merely wearing their attractive uniforms and driving multimillion dalasi Pajeros or Pradosunder guard. In appropriate cases, they must look the ultimate drivers of public power in the face and say sorry but I cannot arrest or detain anyone on these facts.
Better to take a long view of life and do the right thing especially when the watching public knows that a particular conduct is utterly nonsensical and abusive.
As referenced by His Excellency, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
If His Excellency can sit at the same table and dine from the sumptuous national buffet with arch former PARTISAN critics under the soothing breezes of the Atlantic massaging their senses and stimulating deep thought on profound national issues, there should be no difficulty accepting the Jah succession question as a matter of legitimate public interest.
I urge His Excellency to ponder the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law…”
I again urge His Excellency to take a lone walk along the serene grounds amidst the flowers and trees of the national house he calls home, to reflect on the rise and fall of the previous tenants-in-chief of that house, to come to terms with his mortality, and the transiency of his office. Let him survey the majesty of the presidency and reflect on the purpose for which he was sent to Number 1 Marina. The monuments we will remember and celebrate him for are not going to be the physical structures he left behind but the unseen symmetric beauty of governance under law.
After all he is our Excellency, our President of the Republic, our Mr Adama Barrow.
The Voice Newspaper, and Momodou Justice Darboe, should be left alone!
This Jah succession issue is a nonstory.
I urge that His Excellency call off his lawyers, and the commanding officers of the GPF.