In a notice addressed to The Gambia’s electoral commission and police chief, Musa Bassadi Jawara, an economist and author based in Fairfax, Virginia, has warned Gambian authorities against what he describes as a possible attempt to disqualify presidential candidate Talib Ahmed Bensouda.
Jawara argues that any decision on presidential eligibility must follow the law and respect voters’ rights.
In a notice dated November 1, 2026, Jawara addressed Independent Electoral Commission Chairman Joseph Colley and Inspector General of Police Seedy Muctarr Touray. He copied the presidency, the attorney general and several regional and international offices.
Jawara said he had set out his legal arguments in two earlier rejoinders and had notified diplomatic stakeholders of his concerns. He did not provide the grounds on which he believes Bensouda might be disqualified in the text of the notice.
His central warning was that the IEC and police must not use their authority to exclude a candidate for political reasons or deny Gambians a lawful choice at the ballot box. Any decision on eligibility, he argued, should be made through proper legal procedures rather than executive pressure.
Here is the full text of the notice: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
FORMAL NOTICE OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIABILITY AND DIPLOMATIC SEISIN: WARNING AGAINST ULTRA VIRES ATTEMPT TO DISENFRANCHISE ELECTORATE AND UNLAWFULLY DISQUALIFY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TALIB AHMED BENSOUDA – Musa Bassadi Jawara
To:
Mr. Joseph Colley, Chairman, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Kanifing, The Gambia
Mr. Seedy Muctarr Touray, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Police Headquarters, Banjul, The Gambia
CC: Presidency, Attorney General, ECOWAS Commission, AU Commission, UN Resident Coordinator, EU Delegation, U.S. Embassy Banjul
Date: November 1, 2026
From: Musa Bassadi Jawara, Economist & Author, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
RE: FORMAL NOTICE OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIABILITY AND DIPLOMATIC SEISIN: WARNING AGAINST ULTRA VIRES ATTEMPT TO DISENFRANCHISE ELECTORATE AND UNLAWFULLY DISQUALIFY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TALIB AHMED BENSOUDA – Musa Bassadi Jawara
Chairman Colley and IGP Touray,
I write with utmost urgency and unequivocal firmness.
I. ON LEGAL ISSUES:
Be informed that I have covered legal issues arising from my two Combined Legal Rejoinders and they are complete, exhaustive, comprehensive, authoritative, detailed, meticulously documented, constitutionally anchored, jurisprudentially fortified, precedent-setting, unassailable, irrefutable and conclusive.
II. ON DIPLOMATIC NOTIFICATIONS:
We have also made diplomatic notifications extensive, fully informative, meticulously detailed, formally acknowledged, widely disseminated, comprehensively lodged and irrevocably filed with all relevant international stakeholders, such that the international community is now fully seized in knowledge.
III. ON CIRCUMVENTION:
Should the IEC and the Inspector General of Police under the directives of President Adama Barrow attempt to circumvent, subvert, pervert, circumvent due process, abuse executive power, usurp judicial function, manipulate electoral law, weaponize state institutions, engineer a constitutional coup, to disenfranchise Gambian citizens; disqualify a candidate for pretextual, extraneous, politically motivated, legally untenable, constitutionally impermissible, and manifestly unjust reasons.
IV. ON CONSEQUENCES:
Should these turn to be violent and cause injury and concomitant ills and instability, harm, bloodshed, loss of life, destruction of property, civil commotion, public disorder, ethnic tension, national trauma, economic collapse, and regional insecurity in the Senegambia region.
V. ON LIABILITY:
Then the responsibility will lie squarely with President Adama Barrow; the Attorney General, IEC leadership and the IGP!
VI. A PERSONAL WORD TO PRESIDENT ADAMA BARROW — AND ON SEISIN:
President Adama Barrow:
Given the vapidity of your government, and the serious, glaring concerns of economic hardship and the terrible, unbearable living conditions of citizens, your worries at the ballot box are real and palpable, existential and legitimate — for you know the people have rejected you!
You were not supposed to run for a third term — the moral compact, the democratic spirit, and the promise of 2016 forbade it — but you forced yourself, and by doing so, you are now hell-bent on denying others their constitutional right to contest! This can’t stand! This will not stand!
You are advised to focus on your illegitimate and deeply corrupt presidency and administration and whatever little is left of it! You have amassed illegal wealth beyond belief, beyond comprehension, while Gambians starve — and you are NOT going to massacre your way into a third-term presidency!
All diplomatic notifications have been made. They are seized in full knowledge.
You have been put on notice.
You cannot buy the ballot, you cannot steal the ballot, and you will not bury the ballot in blood!
Respectfully but firmly,
Musa Bassadi Jawara
Economist & Author
Fairfax, Virginia, USA
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
