he Gambia now an Islamic republic, says President Yahya Jammeh

Leader who quit Commonwealth in 2013 says Muslim-majority state will still respect others citizens’ faiths but he wants to shake off ‘colonial legacy’
President Yahya Jammeh
President Yahya Jammeh, pictured, is looking to the Arab world for support to replace western aid funding to the Gambia, according to critic Sidi Sanneh. Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images

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The Gambia has been declared an Islamic republic by President Yahya Jammeh who said he wanted to further distance the west African state from its colonial past.

The tiny, formerly secular country – named after the river from which British ships are said to have fired cannonballs to fix its borders – joins the ranks of other officially Islamic republics such as Iran and Afghanistan.

“In line with the country’s religious identity and values I proclaim Gambia as an Islamic state,” said Jammeh on state television. “As Muslims are the majority in the country, Gambia cannot afford to continue the colonial legacy.”

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The Gambia’s population of 1.8 million people are 95% Muslim. Jammeh said citizens of other faiths would still be able to practise.


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dani67 said:

The blogger Sidi Sanneh, a former foreign minister who has become a US-based dissident, said: “Starved of development funds because of his deplorable human rights record and economic mismanagement, Jammeh is looking towards the Arab world as substitute for and source of development aid.”

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I think you see the rationale right there. This is just another play by a tin-pot demagogue seeking to shore up his personal power while fearing the repercussions for his aid-dependent economy. He probably assumes that Middle Eastern dictatorships and theocracies will be unconcerned at his human rights abuses provided he couches his actions in pseudo-religious rhetoric. He may be right, but I doubt the needs of a little strip of riverland on the opposite side of the Sahara, dependent on peanut production, will figure high in anyone's priority list.

I hope he is successful getting his financial aid from the muslim world. I would hate to see us contributing to it.