AFP, BANJUL, Gambia: Gambians on Saturday anxiously awaited the departure of strongman Yahya Jammeh after he agreed to stand down following 11th-hour talks with west African leaders to head off a regional military intervention.Announced in the early hours of Saturday morning, Jammeh’s decision to leave appears to end a protracted political crisis in this former British colony, allowing newly-elected president Adama Barrow to take over.The announcement came after flurry of last-minute diplomacy by the presidents of Guinea and Mauritania who jetted into the capital Banjul on Friday to persuade the recalcitrant leader to stand down.Several sources said he was likely to leave on Saturday, but so far there has been no clear agreement on where he would go.
And his actions will be carefully monitored as he has previously agreed to step down after recognising Barrow as winner of the December 1 elections—then completely reversed his position.
“I have decided today in good conscience to relinquish the mantle of leadership of this great nation with infinite gratitude to all Gambians,” Jammeh said on state television in the early hours of Saturday.
“My decision today was not dictated by anything else than the supreme interest of you, the Gambian people and our dear country,” he said following hours of talks with Guinea’s Alpha Conde and Mauritania’s Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.
At Friday’s talks, backed by the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), an agreement was reached in principle for Jammeh to leave, but by Saturday morning, it had still not been signed.The agreement “foresees the departure of Yahya Jammeh from The Gambia for an African country with guarantees for himself, his family and his relatives,” Abdel Aziz said on return to Nouakchott in remarks quoted by the official AMI news agency.