By Sheriff Bojang Jnr
The Gambian authorities are seeking more electricity from Senegal and Guinea as reduced imports leave the National Water and Electricity Company (Nawec), which operates the national grid, struggling to meet rising demand with its own generation.
Senegal has supplied mostly rural parts of The Gambia since 2017, while Guinea joined the electricity mix through the Gambia River Basin Development Organisation (OMVG) network in October 2024. Supplies from both have since fallen, reportedly over Nawec’s unpaid bills to Senegal’s Société nationale d’électricité du Sénégal (Senelec) and, in Guinea, lower rainfall affecting hydropower generation.
But Guinea has electricity problems of its own. Parts of Conakry, the capital, are enduring prolonged outages even as The Gambia seeks more power from itsneighbour.
“In recent days, we have power cuts from 8am till 6pm or more most of the time,” a media worker in the Guinean capital tells The Africa Report. “The authorities keep saying they are working on something, but we don’t know when this will stop.”
In The Gambia, the shortages have already spilled onto the streets.
‘Barrow must go’
Protests erupted overnight on Monday across Banjul and surrounding communities after weeks of worsening outages, with some residents reporting blackouts lasting up to 24 hours.
Protesters lit candles and walked through darkened streets demanding electricity and chanting ‘Barrow Must Go’. Others burned tyres and erected barricades, while police used tear gas to disperse crowds.
”Barrow Must Go’ is not just a slogan. It is frustration, it is anger, it is a message that people feel their daily lives are getting worse and no one is listening’
In Banjul, candle-carrying protesters marched to the gate of the heavily guarded State House, where they were met by Gambian and Senegalese security personnel. Electricity was restored in the city shortly afterwards and the protesters dispersed.
In Farato, a sprawling town about a 30-minute drive from Banjul, protesters gathered near the residence of Vice President Mohammed BS Jallow and pulled down banners at an office of Adama Barrow’s ruling National People’s Party.
Modou Lamin B Bah, National Assembly member for Banjul North and the pioneer of the night protest in the capital, says people had simply had enough.
“What pushed me was desperation from the people,” Bah tells The Africa Report. “For weeks, communities in Banjul have been living in total darkness. Ten to 30-hour blackouts, no water, businesses collapsing, students unable to study, and hospitals struggling.”
“People came to me as their representative in the parliament and said, ‘Honourable, we can’t take this anymore’.”
For him, the chants reflect anger extending beyond electricity.
“It tells us one thing: the people feel abandoned,” he says. “’Barrow Must Go’ is not just a slogan. It is frustration, it is anger, it is a message that people feel their daily lives are getting worse and no one is listening.”
The protests come as Barrow prepares to seek a third term in December.
Senegal, Karpowership and Guinea
The roots of the crisis stretch back to the beginning of Barrow’s presidency. In 2017, domestic capacity covered only about 42% of The Gambia’s electricity needs, with Nawec struggling with ageing infrastructure, weak finances and underinvestment.
That year, Nawec agreed to buy 10MW from Senegal’s national electricity company. A 2022 agreement later opened the way for imports of up to 50MW through OMVG substations at Soma and Brikama.
The Gambia also turned to Karpowership in 2018. At its peak, the Turkish company says its floating power plant supplied up to 40% of national electricity demand.
Nawec chose not to renew the contract and Karpowership stopped supplying
electricity on 2nd May 2025. The utility presented the exit as a step towards “greater energy independence”, saying it would reactivate its own generators and expand sustainable domestic energy sources.
By then, Guinea had become another source. Nawec began importing electricity
through the OMVG network in October 2024, describing it as a move towards “a more diverse and reliable electricity supply”.
The model combined domestic generation with power from Senegal and Guinea. It is now being tested. Demand has risen to around 140MW, according to Nawec, while imports from both neighbours have fallen and domestic generation has not filled the gap.
When dams are running dry
The drop from Guinea has been significant. Galo Saidy, managing director of Nawec, said The Gambia was receiving close to 70MW to 80MW from Guinea around this time last year.
“The dams were full,” he told journalists in Banjul on Tuesday. “This year, the rain is not there.”
Barrow recently travelled to Guinea seeking more electricity, with Energy Minister Nani Juwara and Saidy also holding talks with their Guinean counterparts.
A 2025 study of Guinea’s Kinkon hydroelectric plant found that declining rainfall and water flows were associated with falling electricity output. The study does not explain Guinea’s current shortages, but illustrates the vulnerability of hydropower to rainfall fluctuations.
In addition to Nawec’s unpaid bills to Senelec, technical problems on Senegal’s own grid have added to the squeeze.
In September 2024, Juwara, then Nawec managing director and now energy minister, told parliament that the utility owed Senelec more than CFA10bn (US$18m) for three months of unpaid electricity bills.
Juwara blamed Nawec’s cash flow problems and acknowledged that The Gambia lacked enough domestic generation to meet demand if imported power fell away.
“There is no quick fix at the moment,” he told lawmakers.
Two years later, Barrow is using almost exactly the same language.
‘It is not a quick fix’
Touring Nawec facilities on Tuesday after the protests, Barrow called the electricity crisis a “national security issue” and an “emergency”.
“It is not a quick fix,” he said, promising improvements by the end of October as the government brings in a new generator. “It is time for action.”
The Gambia’s information minister and government spokesperson, Ismaila Ceesay, acknowledges that public patience has run out.
“The fact that citizens, particularly young people, felt compelled to take to the streets is a clear indication that the level of frustration has reached a point where explanations alone are no longer sufficient,” he tells The Africa Report. “People want results, and they are justified in demanding reliable electricity.”
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The shortage also contrasts with Barrow’s recent claim that The Gambia has more generating capacity than it needs, to the point that some generators were being switched off.
Ousman Gajigo, an economist and former African Development Bank (AfDB) official, says the crisis shows the opposite.
“The electricity crisis is a leadership failure,” he says.
Gajigo argues that after seven years of relying on Karpowership, the government failed to build enough domestic generating capacity to replace it while rapidly expanding electricity connections.
From blackouts to the ballot box
The protests came barely 24 hours after United Movement for Change party (Unite) presidential candidate Talib Ahmed Bensouda attacked Barrow over the outages at a rally in Brikama, branding the crisis the ‘Barrow Blackout’.
Main opposition UDP leader Ousainu Darboe has also criticised Nawec’s management and ageing equipment.
But Monday’s protests were not an opposition mobilisation. Mustapha Darboe, political analyst and founder of investigative outlet The Republic, describes them as spontaneous.
“There were a lot of people who have supported the president who are displeased at the current state of affairs,” he tells The Africa Report.
Darboe believes the government’s push for more electricity from Senegal and Guinea reflects concern about the electoral impact.
“The government is operating on the understanding that it could harm them at the polls,” he says.
If additional imports and Barrow’s new generator stabilise supply before December, however, the political damage could fade.
“They can solve it in the short term, which would give them some more space to
breathe before the presidential election,” Darboe says.
But the underlying problem could remain. “After the presidential election, the energy situation will still go back to as it was before,” he tells The Africa Report.
And if the lights stay on, he argues, the current anger may not last until polling day.
“It’s highly likely that if the government utilises the energy supply they’re going to get from Guinea and from Senegal, and stabilises power supply in the country, that people will forget about the energy issue,” Darboe says.
First published at: https://www.theafricareport.com/430218/as-blackout-protests-pile-pressure-on-barrow-can-senegal-and-guinea-keep-gambias-lights-on/10/12.