The Gambian government announced on Wednesday that it had thwarted an attempt by several soldiers to stage a coup to oust President Adama Barrow.
Barrow’s office said a military unit conducted a “swift operation” on Tuesday and arrested four soldiers from the army and navy for conspiring against the government. It noted that the military is in pursuit of three other servicemen who are on the run.
Urging the public not to panic, the presidency said investigations are continuing and that the arrested soldiers are assisting with the probe.
The government has not provided additional information, and it is not clear if the soldiers had links with the previous government of Yahya Jammeh. According to the BBC, there were no reports of gunshots and no indication that the military had been deployed to secure strategic locations.
The agency further said when reports of a coup attempt were reported on Tuesday, authorities in Banjul denied them, saying it had carried out military exercises.
Jammeh, an army officer, came to power via a military coup in 1994 and then ruled as president from 1996-2017. He was defeated by Barrow in the 2016 election and forced into exile to Equatorial Guinea after refusing to accept the result.
His two-decade authoritarian rule was marked by abuses against critics, opposition activists, journalists, and the LGBTQ community. Furthermore, a truth and reconciliation commission in 2019 accused him of committing a spree of killings, torture, and rapes during his time in power. He is also believed to have embezzled up to $1 billion in state funds.
Breaking!
— Regina Sondo (@ReginaSondoM) December 21, 2022
The government of #Gambia says it has thwarted a coup attempt on Wednesday.
See details on press release below… pic.twitter.com/8w4yjmg9aO
Barrow, whose victory in 2016 was touted as a boost for democracy, has since seen his popularity plummet. When he fist came to power, he pledged step down after three years but then reneged on this promise and said that he would stand for re-election in 2021.
This decision resulted in the ‘Operation 3 Years Jotna Movement,’ wherein citizens took to the streets to protest against Barrow’s refusal to honour his earlier promise of stepping down in 2019. His popularity grew even further after he withdrew from the United Democratic Party, under whose banner he won the presidency, and formed his own party, the National People’s Party, last year. He has also faced criticism for aligning his party with Jammeh’s Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction, which critics believe could pave the way for Jammeh to return from exile.
Barrow stood as a candidate for the 2021 presidential election and defeated Ousainou Darboe to be re-elected with 53% of the votes.
He is said to lack trust in the military establishment with his security detail composed of Senegalese troops, while the international airport and sea port are respectively protected by Nigerian and Ghanaian troops.
Tuesday’s coup attempt occurred against the backdrop of a series of military rebellions in West Africa and the wider region.
In May, Mali’s military junta claimed to have foiled a Western-backed attempted coup. The Malian junta, led by interim President Col. Assimi Goïta, first came to power in August 2020 after overthrowing President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Prime Minister Boubou Cissé, after which it agreed to an 18-month transitional period, at the end of which it would hold an election in February 2022.
However, nine months later, in May 2021, Goïta detained interim President Bah N’Daw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane and declared himself the president.
In September, Burkina Faso’s military leader Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by rival military leader Ibrahim Traoré over the former’s inability to deal with Islamist insurgency. Damiba himself came to power in January 2022 after ousting democratically elected president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.
Similar military coups, successful and unsuccessful, have taken place since 2021 in Chad, Guinea, Niger, and Sudan. In fact, since 2010, there have been around 40 coups (including failed ones) in Africa, with almost 20 occurring in West Africa and the Sahel.