IRIN News - Gambia Has Decided
#GambiaHasDecided
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On Dec 1st, 2016, the Gambian people voted out their autocratic President Yahya Jammeh, after 22 years in power, and elected Adama Barrow as their democratically chosen leader. Jammeh conceded defeat on national television and said, "The Gambia has decided". But a week later, Jammeh announced he was annulling the election results,
and would not step down, creating a potentially dangerous impasse.
A grassroots movement used Jammeh's own words against him, and the slogan #GambiaHasDecided became a rallying call for him to step down.
Activists initially set up billboards with the slogan #GambiaHasDecided. The billboards were torn down by Jammeh's loyalists. T-shirts with the slogan were smuggled around the country, hidden under piles of Jammeh's APRC party's political merchandise. Wearers were arrested. But not to be intimidated, the activists around the country turned to painting the slogan, often under the cover of darkness, on walls and roads, creating a powerful unifying message.
On January 21st 2017, after intense pressure from neighbouring regional heads to ensure the will of the Gambian people,
Jammeh was whisked into exile to the pariah state of Equatorial Guinea, where he remains.