By Kebeli Demba Nyima
Atlanta, USA
The Gambia has never lacked political irony, but the decision to allow Papa Faal, a man who admitted in open court to participating in an armed insurrection against a sovereign state, to return home and parade himself as a presidential hopeful under the Gambian People’s Advancement Party (GPAP), represents a new national absurdity. It is the sort of farce that would make even the most experimental playwright of the Greek theatre pause and ask whether the script had gone too far.
For the avoidance of doubt, the events of 30 December 2014 were not a protest, a march, or an intellectual rebellion carried out from the comfort of a keyboard. They were an armed attack on State House involving military-grade weapons. It was led by Gambian dissidents based in the United States who conspired to overthrow an elected government. Papa Faal, a former U.S. Air Force serviceman, admitted his role. He was not exonerated. He was not acquitted. He pleaded guilty before a federal judge in Minnesota to violating the U.S. Neutrality Act.
Although he received no custodial sentence, the judgment stands. The admission stands. The record stands.
No country that respects its constitution or its citizens would permit such a man to stand for public office.
Yet, in The Gambia, the Independent Electoral Commission has offered him the political equivalent of a clean bath and a fresh suit.
It is a scandal.
The laws of The Gambia, specifically the Elections Act, bar individuals convicted of serious offences from contesting elections. The intent is obvious. A republic cannot be entrusted to people who have openly demonstrated their willingness to subvert it by force. Yet somehow the IEC has developed the remarkable talent of interpreting the law only when it suits its political masters. It rejected Papa Faal’s nomination in 2021. Four years later, with the same guilty plea and the same history of armed rebellion, the IEC now finds him perfectly eligible to form a party and seek the highest office in the land.
Only in The Gambia can a man convicted in a US court for taking part in a coup attempt return home and be told by the electoral body: “Welcome, here is your party registration certificate.”
This is not merely administrative incompetence. It is a dereliction of constitutional duty. It is the transformation of the IEC from a referee into a political accessory. It is the slow poisoning of our democratic culture by an institution that no longer knows whether its role is to enforce the law or serve the whims of the day.
Papa Faal claimed he is a grandnephew of Sir Dawda Jawara. But honestly, who cares?
The Jawara family name does not sanctify him. The bloodline of a statesman does not erase the crime of an armed assault on the state. The fact remains unchanged. Papa Faal took up arms against The Gambia. That alone disqualifies him morally and constitutionally.
The real tragedy is not Papa Faal’s ambition. Every Gambian is free to dream, even those whose past ought to have taught them humility. The real danger lies in an IEC willing to treat the law like a malleable sheet of rubber, expandable for some and suffocating for others.
Institutions fall long before nations do, and in The Gambia, the IEC is falling with alarming speed.
If a convicted coup participant is now a political party leader, then the question is no longer whether the IEC should be reformed. The question is whether the IEC should be dismantled entirely and rebuilt from the ground up with professionals, not political loyalists.
A democracy cannot survive this level of institutional recklessness.
A republic cannot endure this culture of selective amnesia.
And a nation cannot prosper when its electoral body behaves like a political concierge service.
In a nutshell, Papa Faal’s political rise stands as an indictment of the IEC’s failure to uphold even the most basic standards of democratic integrity. It shows how easily principles can be discarded and how quickly an institution charged with protecting the republic can drift into political accommodation. The Gambia must decide whether it wishes to be a nation governed by law or a place where individuals who once took up arms against the state can reappear as candidates without consequence. The evidence before us suggests which direction the country is taking.
