By Musa Bassadi Jawara, Economist and Author
Commentary – The Gambian political earthquake that many predicted has finally erupted.
In a mega rally at the iconic Buffer Zone in Tallinding on Saturday, October 17, former President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, speaking via WhatsApp audio address from his vantage point in Equatorial Guinea, officially announced that his loyalist faction — the APRC No-To-Alliance Movement — will contest the December 5th, 2026 Presidential Election.
And his anointed flagbearer is no lightweight: Hon. Almameh Gibba, the firebrand National Assembly Member for Foni Kansala.
A CROWD NEVER SEEN BEFORE
What happened at Buffer Zone was not a rally. It was a statement of raw, unfiltered political power.
Eyewitnesses confirm it was the largest crowd assembled by any political party in recent years — dwarfing both the ruling NPP alliance led by President Adama Barrow and the opposition UDP.
It was a formidable, thunderous, electrifying display of loyalty never before seen in The Gambia’s political history. A sea of green, a chorus of die-hard loyalists, militants, women, youths from Foni, Kombo and the Kombos — chanting Jammeh’s name as if he never left.
Jammeh’s support is not just political; it is spiritual, cultural, emotional, unbreakable, and Himalayan in its depth. Whether this juggernaut can translate into votes outside its strongholds of Foni and Kombo St. Mary will determine the fate of the Republic.
PRESIDENT BARROW, YOU CREATED THIS MORASS — NOW YOU MUST FIGHT IT BEFORE IT CONSUMES YOU IN A BLAZING INFERNO
President Adama Barrow, you have created a mess and you must own it. You have manufactured an unnecessary political battle for yourself, a morass of your own making, and now you must fight it — lest it consumes you in a blazing inferno.
Mr. President, you often beat your chest that you used a big knife to kill the elephant in President Jammeh, and that it will be much easier to kill the chicken in Darboe. You boasted that UDP is finished and Jammeh is history.
But after the Buffer Zone tsunami on Saturday, we must put you on notice: The elephant you thought you killed has grown a second life, and it is coming after you. And it might be deadly.
You abandoned the very commissions you mandated.
Jammeh left under ignominious conditions in January 2017, followed by a period of unprecedented probe. The Janneh Commission unveiled breathtaking corruption, illicit wealth, with prima facie evidence — transgressions that were giant, macabre, and staggering.
The TRRC then established with iron-clad verification, certainty, and irrefutable evidence the humanitarian tragedies, human rights abuses, crimes against humanity, murders, and violations of national and international law. The evidence is monumental and undeniable.
Yet President Barrow, in your greed, in your insatiable hunger for power, in your Machiavellian desire to stay in power at all costs, you ignored your own government’s findings. You dropped the principles of democratic norms, you turned your back on the victims of dictatorship and the flight of justice.
In a terrible lack of principle, you went after the support of the ousted dictator. You traveled to his home village of Kanilai to meet with his family, to solicit support, to wine and dine with the very legacy you promised to erase. You embraced Jammeh’s APRC for political expediency.
It has all come back to haunt you.
A STATE ON EDGE: THE POLICE MORATORIUM
The fear in your security establishment is now naked and it is worried.
Case in point: In recent days, your police command issued a moratorium on all political rallies scheduled in the Kombo St. Mary region until President Barrow completes his ‘Meet The People Tour.’
Yet on the same Saturday, two rallies were scheduled: UNITE and APRC No-To-Alliance.
UNITE had its rally cancelled by the police. Buffer Zone went ahead.
Whatever the explanation, it signals one thing: Political muscle, power, force, and threat. Your security establishment senses the immense, intimidating, and formidable power in the former president’s camp, and it is worried.
It makes the campaign leading to the December 5th presidential poll enter unparalleled, uncharted waters in The Gambia’s political evolution and history.
If you are not careful, Mr. President, this could lead to chaos, instability, and public disorder.
You created the situation. You must own it.
REFLECTIONS ON THE ROAD TO DECEMBER 5TH
1. The Tribunal is Coming and Your House is Divided: President Barrow, you cannot escape the ticking clock of justice. The international tribunal led by British barrister Martin Hackett, the Special Prosecutor appointed to lead Jammeh-era crimes, is set to commence its work. Former President Jammeh will be on trial for crimes against humanity. Tragically, his surrogates and those who aided and abetted his 22-year autocracy are today working for you, sitting in your government, campaigning for your NPP. This will be a major moral and legal problem. How will you divorce yourself from this group of potential witnesses and co-perpetrators to autocratic rule? That will be your greatest challenge. You cannot prosecute Jammeh while hugging his enablers.
2. The Betrayal of the Constitution: We must chastise and lament your greatest failure, Mr. President. You killed the dreams of a generation. You dropped the draft Constitution after hundreds of millions of taxpayer dalasis were spent, after thousands of Gambians at home and abroad made submissions. Why? Because of your greed and your naked desire to extend your stay beyond democratic norms. You chose a term extension clause over a new Gambia. That sobering betrayal is why no one trusts your promises today. Buffer Zone is the price of that betrayal.
3. The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost: History is a cruel teacher. In 2017, The Gambia stood as a beacon of hope for Africa. In 2026, we stand at a precipice. You thought you were the smartest politician to use Jammeh to kill Darboe. But you forgot a Gambian proverb: when you bring a lion’s cub into your house to chase rats, one day it will grow and eat you. The Buffer Zone crowd is that cub, now a full-grown lion.
4. December 5th Will Be Judgment Day: This election is no longer a contest of manifestos. It is a referendum on your betrayal. It is Barrow versus the ghost he resurrected. The international community is watching. Gambians are watching. The elephant and the chicken are now standing together, watching you. Mr. President, the race you thought you had already won has just begun, and the terrain has never been more dangerous.
5. A Message to Coalition Seekers — This is Not a Junior Partner: To all political parties who are looking for a coalition or alliance, let the Buffer Zone message be crystal clear. All indications are that this APRC No-To-Alliance faction is determined to go full blast on its own. They will not play a subsidiary, secondary, or junior role to any political party. They are the most loyal, the most hardened, the most unshakable, the most disciplined, and the most die-hard political force in The Gambia today — fervent, zealous, and unapologetically Jammeh. As of yesterday, Saturday, October 17, the battle is joined. It is now a wide-open, unpredictable, cloudy, volcanic, and fiercely contested race with no clear frontrunner. The political map has been redrawn in green.
A PERSONAL NOTE FROM FAIRFAX
As I sit in a quiet restaurant here in Fairfax, Virginia, USA, writing this essay this Sunday morning, I am worried. I am deeply worried about my country.
This was not the deal. This was not the bargain that propelled you to power almost ten years ago in December 2016. We did not vote for a coalition to end dictatorship only to bargain with its shadows.
We voted for never again. We voted for justice, for a new constitution, for reform, for victims, for hope.
Mr. President, you have traded that sacred covenant for political survival. And now the foundation is shaking.
Whatever the outcome on December 5th, I pray for peace. I pray for The Gambia. I pray that we do not descend into the chaos we escaped. May God save our beloved homeland.
This commentary has been written by:
Musa Bassadi Jawara
Economist & Author
Fairfax, Virginia, USA
