By far the Gambia’s most prominent human and all other rights activist, Madi Jobarteh is often the first port of call for Gambians whose rights are violated especially by the authorities. But his reputation as ‘the people’s advocate’ also makes him the most loathed Gambian, depending on what or who he is fighting against.
Madi Jobarteh, on a regular day, could be mistaken for a successful human rights lawyer; he’s firm, argumentative, responsive, confident, and he stands for what he feels is right and against what is wrong.
Described as a “political bulldog” by a journalist friend, Jobarteh spends most of his time on a daily basis writing or editing press statements against abuses for organisations.
Or he’s on the phone, responding to calls from people who need his help to speak up against one issue or the other.
Or he’s writing mostly daring and lengthy opinion pieces on Facebook and other social media platforms, especially on issues of bad governance, corruption and dereliction of duty.
The last hope for human rights
In his tiny West African country of The Gambia, where other activists cherry-pick when to speak up and what to speak about, Jobarteh is an activist for all seasons, always speaking up, regardless of whose fight he champions or in which section of society he makes enemies.
He calls out corruption when there is an allegation of corruption. He is a thorn in the flesh of government authorities whom he often goes after for various governance issues.
“I have dedicated myself long before today to live according to my conscience and nothing else,” Jobarteh tells The Africa Report. “I do not owe allegiance to Gambians or to any human being or any leader or race, tribe or culture because they could be wrong, oppressive and unjust, sometimes for whatever reason.”
He is celebrated and his Facebook posts widely shared by the opposition – and lambasted and called names by the government supporters – when he writes against the ruling party/government.
But when he criticises the opposition, he is idolised by government supporters and vilified by opposition supporters. That’s the routine Jobarteh goes through. To his admirers, he’s the last hope for human rights and good governance in The Gambia. To his critics, they often tell him to shut up.
“The day Madi [Jobarteh] shuts up is the day The Gambia will go down the drain because no other Gambian has the audacity or the energy to speak truth to power and hold the government to account, like he does,” says his journalist friend Saikou Jammeh.
“You can insult him, threaten him, harass him or even punch him in the face for defending someone you hate or criticising someone you love. But when you are in trouble and your rights are trampled upon, you can be certain that Madi [Jobarteh] will be the first person to come to your aid, regardless of how harshly you treated him in the past. He is that consistent in his activism,” he adds.
Development communications expert Lamin Jahateh says Jobarteh takes promotion of human rights as “a personal thing; his calling”.
Paying the price for speaking up
Jobarteh’s role as the country’s rights defender-in-chief put him in trouble many times. In June 2020, he was arrested after holding a Black Lives Matter protest outside the US embassy in Banjul, where he criticised the government’s lack of action on police brutality cases against Gambians. He was charged with “false information and broadcasting” but the charges were later dropped.
In a live broadcast during a meeting with Muslim elders in May 2022, President Adama Barrow labeled Jobarteh a troublemaker, accusing him of seeking to “set the country on fire” and threatening that “something will be done about him”.
The threats drew condemnation from various international rights groups including the UN Special Rapporteurs on human rights. Jobarteh calls the president’s threats “cowardly and immature rantings”, telling The Africa Report they were merely to “cover up his own corruption and incompetence which I have dedicated myself to expose and hold him to account.”
Jobarteh afterwards faced continuous online threats, harassment, and even illegal surveillance by Gambian officials, said Amnesty International. Now he’s more alert about his safety, saying “it is common for overzealous individuals to take the words of leaders to put it into practice.”
“Madi Jobarteh is currently the most persecuted human rights activists in The Gambia, for merely utilising his fundamental right to free expression and holding the government, state institutions and public officials to account over allegations of corruption, poor service delivery and mis-governance,” Modou S. Joof, the secretary general of the Gambia Press Union, said in a statement at the time.
On 9 October 2023, Jobarteh was arrested and put in custody by the police, which Amnesty International said was reprisal for his peaceful campaign in support of accountability and respect for democratic laws within the government.
He was bailed after being charged with serious offences, including sedition. However, the authorities kept his phone and that of his daughter, which were seized during his arrest.
Calling for the arrest of prominent Imam
Jobarteh does not shy away from controversy. In June 2022, he called on the Inspector General of Police to arrest and charge prominent Imam and Islamic scholar, Abdoulie Fatty, with incitement to violence and insulting the religious feelings of others.
It followed Fatty’s statement during a Friday sermon labelling Ahmadis as non-Muslims and accusing them of distorting the true Islamic faith. Jobarteh described these comments, which offended Gambia’s Ahmadiyya community, as “bigotry”.
In response, Chebbo Cham, another firebrand Imam, warned of “consequences” and “catastrophe” if any attempt was made to arrest Fatty. He instead called for Jobarteh to be arrested.
“The whole country knows who should be arrested. He [Jobarteh] is the one who has conflicted this nation until the honourable leader [president] of this nation mentioned him by name,” Cham said in a sermon.
Conscience intact over war in Gaza
Sticking to his beliefs has also caused some turbulence with his own career. Earlier this year, Jobarteh ‘parted ways’ with Westminster Foundation for Democracy where he worked as Gambia representative.
His decision to turn his back on the lucrative job stemmed from his views on Palestine and the war in Gaza versus his employer’s. He is a staunch defender of rights of Palestinians and has written several articles condemning “Israel’s war in Gaza”.
“I didn’t submit a resignation letter. We just signed a mutual separation agreement. We parted ways because we had disagreements, and for me, it’s about my position on the Israel-Palestine issue,” Jobarteh told local The Standard newspaper in February.
“These are my issues, which I have raised with them [Westminster Foundation]. I am glad that I have left with my conscience intact.”
In May, Jobarteh publicly rejected an invitation from the US Embassy in Banjul to attend the US Independence Day celebration on account of his views of US policy over Gaza and Palestine.
“As a citizen of this world and having an individual responsibility to defend human rights I have decided to boycott the Government of the United States so long as it continues to arm, support and defend the State of Israel in committing gross human rights violations including genocide against the Palestinians whose lands it continues to illegally occupy in contravention of international law,” he wrote in a letter to the embassy – and published by the media.
“My boycott is further propelled by the ongoing use of police violence against students who are protesting the genocide in Gaza across US universities,” he added.
He instead demanded that the US called on Israel “to immediately ceasefire and remove all its troops out of Gaza and all Occupied Palestinian Territories immediately and to hold all Israeli perpetrators accountable.”
Jobarteh’s position on Palestine cost him. “Fundamentally it costs me a severely reduced source of living because not only did I lose a job but also, I have been denied other opportunities.”
Political analyst and researcher Demba Kande says Jobarteh’s “conviction to stand up for what he feels is right stems from his long passion for respect for human dignity and a just society”.
The Africa Report
