By John Ikani
The Gambia’s government on Wednesday said it had thwarted a coup attempt the previous day and arrested four soldiers.
“Based on intelligence reports that some soldiers of the Gambian army were plotting to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Adama Barrow, the (armed forces) in a swift military operation conducted yesterday arrested four soldiers linked to this alleged coup plot,” the government said.
“The situation is under total control,” the government added in a statement.
It is unclear who exactly was behind Tuesday’s attempt to overthrow President Adama Barrow, who won a second term in elections last year.
Barrow was re-elected in December 2021 for a second five-year term with 53 per cent of the vote.
He won a narrow victory in legislative elections in April but fell short of an absolute majority in the 58-seat parliament.
Coup attempts are not uncommon in the Gambia, a tiny West African country of 2.5 million almost entirely surrounded by Senegal, which is still reeling from over two decades under former president Yahya Jammeh marked by authoritarianism and alleged abuses.
Jammeh himself seized power in a coup in 1994 and foiled several attempts to overthrow him before he lost an election in late 2016 to Barrow.
His ouster was widely viewed as a boost for democracy, although there has been growing frustration with Barrow’s government for its failure to address poverty and rising living costs.
West Africa has been shaken by a series of military power seizures since 2020, in Mali, Guinea and most recently Burkina Faso.
The turbulence, along with a wave of jihadism that has unfurled across the Sahel, spurred leaders of the regional bloc ECOWAS this month to decide on setting up an intervention force to reinforce stability.
