Eight years after ECOWAS led the international community by deploying enormous human and material resources to free the Gambia and its citizens from the asphyxiating hold of a ruthless dictator, Yahya Jammeh, the country risks drifting into another avoidable instability if urgent measures are not taken.

Nigeria, the regional powerhouse had to put its military assets including Air Force fighter jets and a Naval ship at the disposal of the region, while Senegalese foot soldiers marched on their way to Banjul, the Gambian capital before the military Captain-turned-Colonel Jammeh was forced into exile in Equatorial Guinea in January 2017 after he had refused to concede defeat to President-elect Adama Barrow after the December 2016 election.

After toppling Gambia’s independence President, Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, in a 1994 military coup, Jammeh became a tin God and even boasted that he would rule the Gambia for “a billion years.” This writer captured the ordeal of Gambians under Jammeh in an article entitled The Gambia, Jammeh and the Proverbial Bull in a China Shop.

Fear and national insecurity were palpable then, and to avoid a constitutional crisis, ECOWAS ensured that Barrow was officially sworn in as Gambia’s President in his country’s embassy in Dakar, Senegal with an ECOWAS Mission in The Gambia (ECOMIG) code-named “Operation Restore Democracy” quickly deployed to douse the tension, stabilise the situation and restore peace to the country.

Barrow, a former real estate developer, was not originally on the ballot for the 2016 election but was chosen by the party after Jammeh had jailed the presidential front-runner Ousainou Darboe and all other opposition leaders.

However, despite his well-documented atrocities, including the killings and enforced disappearances of opponents using his killer-squad “the Junglers,” and forcing opposition figures and civil society activists into exile, Jammeh commands political influence in the Gambia today, partly due to Barrow’s political machinations.

Many Gambians are now forced to relive the nightmares of the Jammeh era for no justifiable reason, other than the pursuit of the personal political ambition of Barrow, who has since fallen out with Darboe and other key members of the opposition United Democratic Party on whose coalition he won the 2016 election.

After accusing Darboe and others of going back on their words not to serve in his government, Barrow reneged on his earlier pledge to step down after three years of the five-year term.

To consolidate his political power base, Barrow formed a new National People’s Party (NPP) which controversially joined forces with a faction of Jammeh’s APRC party and retained the presidency in the 2021 presidential election.

After co-opting several Jammeh henchmen to consolidate his grip on power, Barrow now sees his political opponents, the media and human rights advocates as stumbling blocks to his third-term dream, which is now tearing the Gambia apart.

At Barrow’s behest, ECOMIG’s mandate has been renewed several times, amid serious concerns within the Gambian armed forces about marginalisation, while “Barrow surrounds himself with ECOMIG forces for personal protection.”

Instead of promoting national unity and cohesion or fostering reconciliation, Barrow has become a divisive force, laser-focused on his political ambition and the next election.

In the early days of his administration a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) was set up under the Special Accountability Mechanism Act, to address the atrocities of the Jammeh regime.

An Anti-torture Act, Victims Reparations Fund Act and the Special Prosecutor's Office Act were also enacted.

Similarly, a Constitution Review Commission (CRC) was established to produce a people-oriented Constitution to replace that of 1997 used by Jammeh for his repressive dictatorship.

The Barrow government accepted 263 of the 265 TRRC recommendations through a White Paper with an implementation Plan. However, it rejected the 2020 Draft Constitution produced by the CRC and has drafted a butchered version, whose provisions are unpublicised to be pushed through a national referendum.

Barrow’s political wheeling and dealing has made him increasingly unpopular among his compatriots, who accuse him of replacing governance with perfidy and propaganda.

His government has now set up a Special Tribunal for The Gambia (STTG) to try human rights violations committed between July 1994 and January 2017, including “murder, torture, enforced disappearances, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecutions and other inhuman acts” and is now pressuring ECOWAS to lend its weight behind the Tribunal.

In principle and, in line with the recommendations of the TRRC, victims of crimes against humanity committed during Jammeh’s brutish regime deserve and should get justice and closure, and accused persons should have their day in court.

However, the Barrow government’s approach to this process smacks of a ploy to capture donor funds and clear all obstacles to his third-term ambition.

The government is being clever by half about the STTG, which it established without any inputs from ECOWAS.

Ironically, Article 17 of the Tribunal’s Statute saddles the ECOWAS Commission with major responsibilities including setting up an Advisory Council and Management Council of the Special Tribunal.

Article 17.1 - The President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (“ECOWAS” and “ECOWAS Commission”) (the Appointing Authority) shall appoint the President, Special Prosecutor and Registrar of the Special Tribunal (“The Principals.”)

Article 17.2 - The President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (“ECOWAS” and “ECOWAS Commission”) shall convene an independent Advisory Council on the Selection of Principals for the Special Tribunal (“Advisory Council”).

Article 17.7 - The Advisory Council shall, upon completion of the evaluation and selection process, submit a report to the President of the ECOWAS Commission (“Appointing Authority”) detailing the suitability of the applicants in the ranked order.

Furthermore, Article 45 states: “The President of the ECOWAS Commission shall establish a Management Committee shall provide administrative and financial oversight to the Special Tribunal.

The Management Committee shall consist of representatives of The Gambia, ECOWAS and any major contributor to the Special Tribunal.
The Management Committee shall have the power to approve the budget and annual report of the Special Tribunal and shall assist its fund-raising.”

From experience and given the complex nature of the work of such tribunals, legal experts strongly believe that involving the ECOWAS Commission in the administration of the STTG would distract from its core mandate of the regional integration agenda.

ECOWAS is not a prosecuting body, and it is already neck-deep struggling to rein in errant member States, three of which have served notice to quit over its perceived weak and ineffectual leadership.

Instead of involving ECOWAS in micro-managing the STTG, experts have recommended a Central African Republic (CAR) model for the Gambian Tribunal.

In 2015, CAR with the support of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN set up a Special Criminal Court (SCC), which the global rights monitor, Human Rights Watch has described as “a significant, unprecedented initiative to deliver justice for victims of brutal crime…”

“The Court is integrated into (CAR’s) domestic judicial system, but staffed by both international and Central African judges, prosecutors, and administrators.

Together with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has two investigators into crimes committed in the country, the SCC is a significant opportunity to end the widespread impunity that victims of the cycles of violence in the Central African Republic have faced,” Human Rights Watch said in a 2017 Report.
It added: “The SCC may also serve as a potential model for other countries seeking to pursue justice for international crimes in their national systems.”

Interestingly, the Gambia hosts the (African Union) AU-backed Commission for Human and People’s Rights, and according to legal experts, another perfect example for the STTG is the UN and AU-supported Special Tribunal in Senegal which tried and convicted former Chadian leader, Hissène Habré for crimes against humanity during his reign.

Instead of pursuing divisive selfish and personal ambition, capable of pushing the Gambia into another crisis, ECOWAS leaders should impress upon Barrow to focus on delivering good governance and promoting national healing and cohesion for sustainable peace in the country and the region.

Today's instability in the ECOWAS region is largely attributable to the mindless pursuit of ill-fated third-term ambition of corrupt, insensitive, greedy, selfish, self-serving, power-hungry opportunists, parading themselves as leaders.

*Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and Consultant on Peace & Security, and Governance Communications

Donald Trump’s election overshadowed Kemi Badenoch’s emergence as the leader of the Tory Party of Britain. Yet, no one gets the worst political job in one of the world’s oldest political parties and walks away quietly.

This is especially the case when the candidate is a straight-talking, ideological woman and a child of an immigrant in a largely conservative society.

It was not a mistake that a section of the British press framed the last contest for the Tory leadership as one of the worst match-ups in recent times, if not in its history. 

Here was Badenoch, a black woman (who doesn’t like to be described in racial terms), in a contest against three men, two of them white, and the last man standing, Robert Jenrick, was snow white. Still, all, including Badenoch, were caricatured as the miserable, surviving heirs of a once-illustrious political party.

Like Trump like Kemi?

Some have compared her with Trump, which is nonsense. The only way she resembles Trump is in her plain speaking, which is a rare quality in politics. Comparing Badenoch to Trump for depth, intellect, or character is a disservice to demagoguery for which Trump has no equal.

Although she had only been in the House of Commons for seven years, her rise was forged in the extraordinary turmoil of British politics in the last decade. She held junior cabinet positions under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. She has been in politics since she was 25 and unsuccessfully contested a seat in the London Assembly in 2012.

Two years ago, after Johnson’s fall, Badenoch contested the Tory leadership position but lost to Truss, whose eventual reign was as brief and chaotic as her competence. In love, as in politics, familiarity ultimately undermines affection. That partly explains why the Tories lost the last general election long before Labour won.  However, the killer punch for the Tories was not this natural course of affairs but the rise of Johnson and his succession by Truss, two of the most incompetent Tory leaders in decades.

Scapegoats and guardian angels

More than any leader in modern British history, these two dragged the Tory party to the left at the expense of its traditional base, giving ground to right-wing clowns like Nigel Farage and others. But the besotted press did not see that—or they pretended they didn’t—until, despite Rishi Sunak’s best efforts at Tory house cleaning, the party suffered one of its worst defeats from years of accumulated rot. 

It’s to Badenoch’s credit that, despite that setback and criticisms of her political views – some deserved – she gave it another shot and has emerged as the first black leader of one of the world’s oldest political parties. 

But her foes in the culture brigade and the furious guardian angels of the Tory legacy won’t let her sit before fetching the long knives. They are upset. How did the party of the durable Winston Churchill, whose leadership saved his country and the world from Hitler, fall this low? 

What has become of the party of Margaret Thatcher, who transformed the UK economy with her free-market policies and laid the foundation for the most extended spell of Tory rule? How can Badenoch, a poor imitation of Thatcher’s ideals, even if she claims her an icon, save the Tories from what looks like a long winter?

‘Kemikaze’

In a baptism of fire after Badenoch’s second Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQT), John Crace of The Guardian wrote that she is “turning out to be the gift that keeps on giving…to the Labour party…Behind her rather patronising, condescending façade, there’s a largely empty interior. 

“She is riddled with levitas. Her self-confidence is in inverse proportion to her abilities. She’s not nearly as bright as she thinks she is, and quite where she got the idea she is a brilliant performer in the Commons is anyone’s guess. It’s Liz Truss levels of delusion.”

Yet, this was the same Badenoch who, two months before she was elected Tory leader, was described by Andrew Marr, author and respected UK political journalist, as “scorchingly clever.” This quality, which is supposed to be her strength, is why she has attracted some of the most scathing criticisms, with some describing her as someone who can start a fight in an empty room. 

What she stands for

Badenoch is something of a shock to a largely conservative society where reticence, class and race play big. She doesn’t believe in being identified by race, for example, and has argued that identity politics only scratches the surface of why nations fail. 

She argues that just as the cloak does not make the monk, to say someone is black or white, gay or straight, does not explain who they are, but lazy politicians stoke race and identity because it saves them the real work of fixing society.

She doesn’t believe in “multiculturalism” either, insisting that cultures make sense not in their numbers or variety but in what each contributes to building and advancing a society. Many would find Badenoch’s position unsettling, being the child of an immigrant herself and for a country like Britain, which has prided itself on being Europe’s melting pot and multicultural capital.

Still on Sowell

I can’t entirely agree with Badenoch that multiculturalism and social cohesion are mutually exclusive, that denial of identity politics wishes it away, or that, as she loves to argue, Britain didn’t profit from colonial rule. Interestingly, in Migrations and Cultures: A World View, Thomas Sowell, one of those Badenoch claims shaped her political views, makes a strong point about the role of migrations and relocations in redistributing skills, knowledge and development worldwide. 

Whatever Donald Trump and the new right are teaching the world, migration by conquest, treaty, geography, or the sheer human desire for a better life is a fact of history. The unlikely rise of Badenoch to power—a Nigerian girl who, at age 16, returned to Britain, where she was born—proves that migration works. However, she might argue that the problem is not migration per se but the unwillingness to integrate with host communities.

My disagreement with the new Tory leader on this point does not suggest even remote support for the vicious attacks she has received from a section of the press in Britain or those in her native country who think she must bend a knee to those who want to exploit her Nigerian heritage before she has even settled down.

Not as brittle as they think

As I wrote, when Sunak emerged as Tory leader (and closet xenophobes may be squeamish all they want), the rise of a racially diverse and unconventional crop of politicians, not only in terms of cultural background but also the ideas they represent, is a good thing for politics – whether in Britain or elsewhere.

Sunak lost to Keir Starmer, not necessarily because Labour was very popular—Starmer won with less than 20 percent of eligible voters’ votes—but because the particularly catastrophic years of Johnson and Truss had eroded trust in politics. 

Badenoch has a lot of work ahead of her, but she has the competence, character, and energy to do it despite the snippers at home and abroad. You don’t get this far in the furnace of British politics by being a levitas. 

Ishiekwene, Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP, is the author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It. 

Like many Nigerians, I have sometimes briefly wondered about Olajumoke Orisaguna, the bread hawker who became famous after stumbling onto the active photo set of celebrity photographer TY Bello in 2016. In the age of internet-driven sensations, people rise out of seemingly nowhere; some just disappear into obscurity. For someone who practically had a Cinderella story, it was natural to enquire what Olajumoke did the morning after she was hurled off to the palace as a princess. Questions about her life after fame were answered when she resurfaced recently with a sad story about how she suffered domestic abuse, was exploited by her manager, and subsequently became impoverished.

Listening to her interview on City 105.1 FM, I felt very sorry for this woman who had risen to a height in the eyes of the public only to slide back down. Except after tasting glamour, the old life one returns to never feels the same anymore. Going from the level of fame that splashes your adorned face on billboards to being just another person struggling to eat can be tormenting. Then, you would have to deal with the questioning stares from those who do not expect to see you in de-glamorised conditions. It cannot be easy to put herself back out there and seek help again. I honestly commend her strength.

As much as I sincerely sympathise with her, I also pondered what her initial fame suggests about our society. What was it about our collective lives that we so badly needed to feel good about that we occasionally catapult random people doing their random things into a hero? When you really think about how her story unfolded, you wonder how it could have been different. While it was unfortunate that she was serially defrauded by her manager, who took advantage of her illiteracy, one still wonders, “What talent or expertise was that manager even managing anyway?”

She is a pretty woman, no doubt, but looks alone do not sell forever in a high turnover industry like modeling. The story of her discovery and the sentiment it dredged would have waned at some point. Compelling stories like a bread seller who turned into a model have a limited shelf life in a world of infinite distractions. The same public that was so quick to read her rise as a miracle cannot be trusted to keep buying what she was selling based on that story alone. Like swimming sharks, they are already sniffing for fresh blood. For how long would her good luck that did not seem based on anything substantial have lasted anyway? She would likely have peaked by now, even if her manager did not play a fast one on her.

As much as Olajumoke’s second coming is a chance for her, it should also be a cautionary tale for the do-gooders of the internet to learn that, as much as certain people’s stories might tug at the strings of our hearts, we should also resist the temptation to play God. I have been part of public fundraising for people who needed an education or medical care several times, so this is not a campaign against philanthropy. Instead, this is about the anxiety that propels charity to the point that we forget we might be overly disrupting the beneficiary’s life. Sometimes the best help one can give to a person is to refrain from overwhelming them with the unstructured support that will eventually paralyse their ability to take the right initiative in their own life.

In the case of Olajumoke, she would probably have been better off if—instead of trying to make her a model—she had been put in school to get an education while learning a trade. Yes, that would have been far less glamorous than appearing on the cover of fashion magazines and perhaps less satisfying for people who badly wanted her to represent some magical tale, but guess what? She would have completed that training by now. She would probably have been more motivated to stick through the adult education classes that one of her benefactors paid for but which she failed to complete. With formal education and vocational training, she would have been independent and self-confident.

Eight years after her surprising “discovery,” she is unsurprisingly back under the custodianship of her benefactors. During her radio interview, Olajumoke mentioned her poor living conditions in Mowe, Ogun State. One cannot blame her for holding the place in disdain. After living in a well-furnished apartment paid for by a benefactor, the reality of living in a place where thousands of other hard-working Nigerians live every day must have been horrifying. But what exactly has she done that entitles her to live any differently? Those who live in that same Mowe and must regularly endure similar horrid environmental conditions did not uniquely offend God; it is just that life has not afforded them the opportunity to stray into the set of a celebrity photo shoot.

Four years after Olajumoke also came the story of Risikat Azeez, the woman with blue eyes cast out of her marriage by her husband, who did not understand her appearance as a rare genetic mutation. Hardly had the story hit the internet that those who saw the makings of another Olajumoke’s story quickly arranged a photo shoot for the woman. Someone instantly appointed herself the woman’s manager! You cannot help but wonder what was there to be managed. While the woman’s transformed appearance was useful to raise funds to empower her, how many photographs of her will the public gorge on before being satiated?

There are several more instances of supposed life-changing encounters propagated by the internet. What is common to them all is that our eagerness to see someone whose story has touched us magically transformed makes us overlook the larger systemic issues of poverty and, in some cases, domestic abuse. At times, charity just makes us use people for our own ends, as in the case of Deborah Olaki—another random social media user—who tweeted that she wakes up at 4.50am to make her husband’s lunch.

After being heckled for it by some fellow women—regular internet behaviour—some men started falling over themselves to donate money to her to spite the cyber feminists. Corporate organisations joined the fray, giving her money and their products. Even the NNPC jumped on the bandwagon (now you see why that organisation is perpetually dysfunctional), donating public funds to an internet-fuelled cause. This is a woman who does what millions of women (including the wives of the men donating) do every day, but somehow fragile masculinity made her a shining example of feminine virtue.

At first, the spectacle of men proving themselves to enrich a woman was delightsome. If the woman had tried to recruit more hecklers to trigger the men into giving more, I would have gladly joined the train. But it got to a point where the degree of their private life she had to trade for donation started feeling invasive. It got me wondering what would become of their lives when the public glare fades. This was a woman who said she began to wake up early to make lunch for her husband because another woman at work was feeding him. If she could not take his fidelity to his marital vows for granted despite his poverty—he could not even afford to buy lunch—what would become of their relationship after making so much money? Until you have money, you really do not know your own virtues. I wondered if any of the male donors, in their eager game of one-upmanship against critical women, paused to reflect how they were dramatically altering the dynamics of this couple’s relationship by playing sugar daddy to them.

Upon the inauguration of the Bola Tinubu administration last year, new SUVs were purchased and distributed to the members of the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly. Such public officers were never assembled in a public place to receive the vehicles. At about the same time, judges whose cars were replaced after about 10 years were assembled by governors who handed the car keys  to them.

The humiliation of judges by the executive was recently taken to an embarrassing level when the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike assembled senior judges to witness the flag off ceremony of 40 housing units to be constructed for judges. The Minister has since announced that he would give 20 houses to Judges of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, 10 to the Judges of the Federal High Court and the remaining 10 to the Justices of the Court of Appeal.

A few colleagues who have forgotten the struggle that culminated in the constitutional recognition of financial autonomy for judges as part of the independence of the judiciary have attempted to justify the distribution of cars and houses to Judges by the executive organ of governments. In fact, those who are not familiar with the current constitutional dispensation have said that the executive should continue to build houses for Judges since it was done before in a particular state.

With respect, it is pertinent to remind such lawyers that sections 81 (3) and 121 (3) of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 which granted financial autonomy to the Federal and State  Judiciaries in the country has been confirmed by the Federal High Court and the National Judicial Council in the following cases:

1. Suit No FHC/ABJ/CS/667/13, Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria  v National Judiciary Council & Ors;

2. Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/63/2013: Olisa Agbakoba, SAN v  National Judicial Council & Anor;

3. Suit No. NAD/56/2013 :Olisa Agbakoba v Attorney-General of Ekiti State & 2 others;

4. Suit No. NICABJ/142/2022: Chief Sebastian Hon v National Assembly & 2 Ors.

Section 81(3) of the Constitution  provides that:”(3) Any amount standing to the credit of the judiciary in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation shall be paid directly to the National Judicial Council for disbursement to the heads of the courts established for the Federation and the State under section 6 of this Constitution.” Although the federal judiciary is better funded than state judiciary but the question of financial autonomy has not been properly addressed.

But due to the refusal of state governments to allow the judiciary to operate its budgets, former President Muhammadu Buhari issued Executive Order No 10 of 2020. State Governors successfully challenged the validity of the Executive Order as it was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Thereafter, section 121(3) of the Constitution was amended  to the effect that any amount standing to the credit of the House of Assembly in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the State “shall be paid directly into wethe account of the Assembly”, and that of the Judiciary “shall be paid directly to the heads of the courts.” A new subsection 4  provides that the state accountant-general of a state must pay the judiciary and the house of assembly their due amounts in monthly installments.

It is public knowledge that the salaries and allowances of Nigerian Judges were increased a few months ago by an Act of the National Assembly. However, the National Judicial Council and the Nigerian Bar Association should prevail on the National Assembly and the various Houses of Assembly to actualise financial autonomy for judges in the 2025 budgets of the Federal Government and the various state governments in strict compliance with  Sections 81(3) and 121(3)  of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.

In other words, with effect  from  2025, the budgets of the judiciary at the federal and state levels should make adequate financial provision to enable the judiciary to build houses and buy cars for judges. This is only way to insulate judges from the overbearing control of the Executives. Therefore, the Nigerian Bar Association should be prepared to challenge any breach of the relevant provisions of the Constitution which have guaranteed financial autonomy for the nation’s judiciary.