Gambia: Jammeh will become a rebel on January 19 if ... - opposition

Gambia’s opposition coalition says the outgoing president Yahya Jammeh automatically becomes a rebel on the 19th of January if he fails to peacefully transfer power to President-elect Adama Barrow.

Spokesperson of the coalition, Halifa Sallah, told Radio France International on Wednesday that they still respected the fact that Jammeh was still the president and that they were going ahead with plans for Barrow’s inauguration on the 19th.

‘‘We believe that on the 19th (January) his (Jammeh’s) term will expire, and president-elect Barrow will assume office, he will be the commander in chief of the Armed Forces so we expect President Jammeh to handover peacefully and if he fails to do so on that day, he becomes a rebel.

‘‘Anybody in the Armed Forces should also owe allegiance to the State, to the Republic, and therefore should follow the command of the president-elect, otherwise they also become rebels,’‘ he said in response to their relationship with the army as at now.

They had stated last week that no court could overturn the victory of Barrow in the December 1 polls.

“President-elect Adama Barrow is sure to have won the election and that no court on this earth will be able to take a contrary decision, tt is his position that he (Barrow) is not going to rely on what the Court is going to do but on the results of the election and we will not speculate on what this Court will decide,” Sallah said.

He said Jammeh could easily have been a political role model like Ghana’s John Dramani Mahama but for his U-turn and call for a rerun of the polls that saw him lose power for the first time in 22 years.

‘‘ECOWAS has already selected the president of Nigeria and also the president of Ghana – who is also an outgoing president. He is now just staying for 30 days, he should be a role model to outgoing president Jammeh.

‘‘Outgoing president Jammeh would have been a model because he accepted the results and if he allowed a smooth transition, now he would have been quoted as a model. So we expect that these two people will come and continue the negotiations so that the bidding of our constitution and the will of our people will be asserted,’‘ he added.