Jammeh told to quit or face the troops

LAGOS // West African leaders will send troops into Gambia if its long-time ruler who lost the recent election does not step down next month, the president of the economic community of West African states ( Ecowas) said yesterday. Marcel de Souza, head of Ecowas, said the regional bloc had chosen Senegal to lead any military intervention if president Yahya Jammeh did not hand over power after 22 years.

“The deadline is January 19 when the mandate of Jammeh expires,” Mr de Souza said. “If he doesn’t go, we have a standby force, which is already on alert. And it’s this standby force that should be able to intervene to restore the will of the people.”

Mr Jammeh initially accepted defeat but changed his mind a week later, saying irregularities in the vote count made him question the electoral victory of his rival Adama Barrow.

Troops then seized the office of Gambia’s electoral commission and Mr Jammeh has mobilised troops across Gambia, which is almost completely surrounded by Senegal.

The UN Security Council this week urged Gambian security forces to “demonstrate maximum restraint” and again urged Mr Jammeh to accept defeat. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, called the troop deployment “deeply worrying, given the record of human rights breaches in Gambia, including excessive use of force against demonstrators, arbitrary detention and deaths in custody, as well as allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees”.