{"id":284863,"date":"2017-01-14T15:41:06","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T15:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=284863"},"modified":"2017-01-14T15:41:06","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T15:41:06","slug":"gambia-talks-fail-as-president-refuses-to-step-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=284863","title":{"rendered":"Gambia talks fail as president refuses to step down"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Gambia’s President-elect, Adama Barrow, has left the country after talks failed to persuade President Yahya Jammeh to step down.<\/p>\n

Nigeria’s president flew to Banjul to try to broker a deal but Mr Jammeh would not relinquish power.<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow is now heading to Mali, where he will meet West African leaders attending a summit there.<\/p>\n

The former estate agent wants to resolve the transitional deadlock so he can be sworn in next week.<\/p>\n

President Jammeh’s term ends on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The African Union has said it will no longer recognise Mr Jammeh’s rule beyond this point.<\/p>\n

\"Adama<\/p>\n

Nigerian leader Muhammadu Buhari had flown to The Gambia’s capital, Banjul, to try to broker a deal, as the region fears the consequences of a non-peaceful transition.<\/p>\n

Ecowas, a 15-nation bloc of West African states that organised the delegation, has it said it would consider removing Mr Jammeh using military force if he refuses to step aside.<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow is travelling to Mali with the Ecowas delegation for further discussions this weekend.<\/p>\n

Mr Jammeh had initially admitted defeat after the December election. But shortly afterwards he called for the result to be annulled.<\/p>\n

The 51-year-old leader seized power in the country in 1994 and has been accused of human rights abuses, although he has held regular elections.<\/p>\n

A lawyer for Mr Jammeh filed a request with the Supreme Court on Thursday, asking for an injunction to block Mr Barrow’s swearing-in.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court is unable to hear the challenge until May because of a shortage of judges, and Mr Jammeh says he will not step down until then.<\/p>\n

There are growing fears that the uncertainty could cause a refugee exodus.<\/p>\n

Thousands of Gambians, mostly women and children, have already crossed the border into neighbouring Senegal and further afield to Guinea-Bissau, where they do not require a visa, officials say.<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow won 43.3% of the vote in December’s election, compared with Mr Jammeh’s 39.6%. A third candidate, Mama Kandeh, got 17.1%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gambia’s President-elect, Adama Barrow, has left the country after talks failed to persuade President Yahya Jammeh to step down. Nigeria’s president flew to Banjul to try to broker a deal but Mr Jammeh would not relinquish power. Mr Barrow is now heading to Mali, where he will meet West African leaders attending a summit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[2435,2436,2437],"class_list":["post-284863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-gambia-news","tag-gambia-president","tag-yahya-jammeh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}