Gambia's president-elect vows he will be sworn in

By Saikou Kalleh

BANJUL, Gambia

Gambia's president-elect Adama Barrow has assured the 1.9 million inhabitants of the small West African nation that he will be sworn in on Jan. 19 when President Yahya Jammeh's term expires despite latter’s announcement that he will not step down.

“The incoming president wants it to be known without any shadow of a doubt that he has the constitutional mandate to prepare to assume Office in January 2017,” Halifa Sallah, the spokesman of the president-elect, told journalists.

“Outgoing President Jammeh took office on Jan. 19, 2012. His five-year term expires in January 2017. Anybody could do the arithmetic for one’s self.”

The statement came in the wake of another threat issued by President Jammeh during a meeting with delegates from the African Bar Association on Dec. 20 that he will not step down when his term expires.

Gambia’s Jammeh rejected the election results, a week after conceding defeat to a little known property developer, Adama Barrow.

The regional economic bloc, ECOWAS, has vowed it would take "all necessary actions" to resolve the impasse. Nigerian President Muhammed Buhari and Ghana’s outgoing president, John Mahama, to continue the mediation until Jan. 19.

Marcel de Souza, president of the ECOWAS commission, has told Mali state TV late Thursday that the West Africa’s regional bloc has put standby forces “on alert” in case President Yahya Jammeh does not step down when his mandate ends.

Barrow’s spokesman would not comment on a possible military intervention but he said it would be a “shame” if a solution to Gambian problems were to be found by outsiders.

“If Gambians do not take charge of their destiny to build a Gambian consensus […], we will lose control of our destiny. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves,” Sallah said alluding to the possible ECOWAS intervention should Jammeh refuse to step down.

“So at this moment, our focus should be on ourselves," he said. "It will be a shame to allow others to take charge of our destiny and try to solve our problems for us.”