The exiled President after the takeover became agitated when Aristide of Haiti was returned to power by US intervention to reverse the coup in Haiti in September 1994.
A transition programme was agreed in January 1995 which should have been followed by a strategy to unify the political forces to reposition themselves as a united front to take over the country upon return to an electoral system and build genuine multi-party system. In short what happened in 2016 could have happened in 1996. The desire to restore his power compelled him to seek for support for intervention.
The movement for intervention was short-lived when the polls were restored in 1996. He finally returned to the Gambia while many of his supporters stayed behind.
Jammeh eventually created an office for ex -president and the National Assembly allocated five Million dalasis per annum to the office.
The Gambian people should now go beyond Jawara and Jammeh and move towards a third republic that would be fundamentally different from the first and second so that no other citizen could ever dream of staying in the office of president for more than two four year terms as in the US and Nigeria.
Any political leader who wants to stay longer must be seen as a power hungry leader. Any political leader who is opposed to a term limit or coming to office in the first round only if one has more than 50 percent of the vote is monarchically inclined.
After Jawara’s 30 year rule and Jammeh’s 22 years only those who wish to put the people to sleep would engage in a discourse on which regime is better. What we need is something different from both. We should opt for a new Gambia.
