By Princewill Ubani · Published
Research ID: PA-ART-1020334802988396547
After Fleeing Gambia in 2017, Jammeh Left Behind Rolls-Royces and a Ransacked Treasury
Yahya Jammeh ruled Gambia for more than 22 years, and for several tense weeks at the end of 2016 and into January 2017, it looked like he might refuse to leave at all. He had conceded the December 2016 election to Adama Barrow, then reversed himself and challenged the result, triggering a regional crisis that brought Gambia to the edge of a military confrontation with its neighbors.
The Economic Community of West African States assembled a regional force and positioned it to remove Jammeh by force if he would not go voluntarily. He left before it came to that. Late on January 21, 2017, Jammeh departed Gambia, traveling first to Guinea before continuing on to exile in Equatorial Guinea, whose government agreed to host him. The ECOWAS force entered the capital, Banjul, the following day, not to fight but to secure the transition and help install Barrow as president.
Jammeh did not leave empty-handed. Officials in the new government said he departed with luxury vehicles, later reported to number roughly 13, including two Rolls-Royces, some flown out on a cargo plane and others simply abandoned. The financial picture that emerged after his departure was worse. By February 2017, Barrow’s government estimated Jammeh had looted around $50 million from state coffers, drawn from sources including the national pension fund, port revenues and the state telecommunications company. That figure proved to be only a first estimate. A justice ministry investigation concluded roughly two years later that Jammeh had stolen at least $362 million during his time in power, and a later analysis by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project put the total misappropriated under his rule, by him and his associates combined, closer to $975 million.
The scale of the discoveries turned what began as a story about seized cars into a sustained forensic accounting effort, with Gambian investigators tracing state funds through shell companies, real estate and business interests years after Jammeh himself had settled into exile in Equatorial Guinea, a country with no extradition treaty obligating it to send him back.
Sources
- “Gambia's ex-leader made off with millions, luxury cars”, HeraldNet (AP wire).
- “Gambia's ex-President Yahya Jammeh 'stole at least $362m'”, Al Jazeera.