ABSTRACT
In 1994, Yahya Jammeh, a junior officer in Gambia’s new army ended Dawda Jawara’s 32-year tenure, as Africa’s longest and continuously serving head of state. Influenced by the leadership approach of Ghana’s Rawlings, Jammeh engineered a political transition program that replicated Ghana’s in its repressive and managed political outcomes. Apart from the politically dictatorial and destabilizing ways of the Jammeh administration, the Gambian economy suffered as the government in Banjul oversaw a hopeless and most severe economic crisis since the country’s independence from Britain. In December, 2016, Jammeh lost power to an eight-party coalition headed by Adama Barrow, and greeted with heightened popular expectations for long sought economic and political reforms. Recent corruption accusations have begun to wither some of these political–economic demands, though some useful regional partnerships such as the one with Ghana has the potential to salvage this consequential postcolonial opportunity to enhance the economic well-being of this once democratically stable polity in West Africa. This chapter, explores ways in which Gambia, emerging from 22 years of military and quasi-military dictatorship could potentially glean from Ghana’s own democratic and economic successes to institute key reforms in vital sectors of its economy and politics. The chapter also argues that a renewed and strengthened Gambia–Ghana relationship, is a win–win African proposition.
