REPAOC draws lessons from the Gambian presidential elections
On 1st December 2016, the Gambian people elected their President in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia.
The ensuing confiscation of power by the outgoing President was a blatant violation of the protocol on good governance and democracy.
The numerous rounds of political negotiations under the auspices of Her Excellency Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia and President of the ECOWAS Conference of Heads of State and Governments, and HE Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and HE Mr. John Dramani Mahama, former President of the Republic of Ghana, failed to resolve the post-electoral standoff and full restore constitutional legality.
It took the mobilization of ECOWAS, African Union and United Nations’ military troops to force the former President of The Gambia to relinquish power after HE Mr. Adama Barrow was inaugurated at the Gambian Embassy in Dakar Senegal.
REPAOC emphatically reasserts its unreserved conviction that power can no longer be confiscated by force, by arms and by violence when the people freely choose their leaders.
To support Peace in The Gambia, REPAOC urges His Excellency Adama Barrow to use all legal means to restore the country’s national unity and to work for the implementation of the United Nations and the African Union’s respective 2030 and 2063 agendas.
Considering the multiple challenges facing African people in their daily efforts to stamp out poverty, this situation is one too many.
REPAOC calls on the international community and all development partners to make firm and bold decisions to bring gravediggers of democracy before the competent courts.
REPAOC thanks the leadership of HE Mr. Macky Sall, President of Senegal, for his commitment to the whole process of managing the post-election crisis in the Gambia.
REPAOC urges the President-in-Office of ECOWAS, Her Excellency Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, to reintroduce the Protocol on the Limitation of Presidential terms of office in West Africa in the Regulatory Acts of the Commission.
REPAOC will spare no effort to promote the effective materialization of this protocol in all Member States.
On this day, we are launching a campaign “for the adoption of the protocol on the limitation of presidential mandates in West Africa”.
Done in Dakar on 24 January 2017
