By: Nyima Sillah
Former member of the ECOWAS Parliament’s political affairs committee and the vice chairman of the National Assembly Defense Committee Samba Jallow said ECOWAS has the final decision on the withdrawal of the ECOMIG troops from The Gambia not the Gambia government.
In an interview with this medium, Jallow stated that part of ECOWAS’s mandate is to ensure that each member state is stable.
“They have their security units and have commissioners, who are responsible for monitoring security and assessing whether there is a need to withdraw their troops in The Gambia or not,” Jallow emphasized.
He hinted that Gambians should reflect on the past and not forget the reason for the deployment of ECOMIG troops to The Gambia, explaining that the troops were deployed due to a political insecurity in the country.
“Security has different areas. The insecurity that people are talking about in the country is not political. These are burglaries and robberies. We have to contextualize the current insecurity that we are having in our country, and put them into different perspectives. People might think that there is no political insecurity trend, but it left to Ecowas to justify and make the final decision,” he emphasized.
He described the recently-released report of the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) on the continuous presence of ECOMIG troops in The Gambia as bogus, arguing that the troops’ continuous presence has no implications on the Gambia’s sovereignty.
“When people are writing, they have to inform people exactly what has happened. These security forces have nothing to do with our sovereignty. They didn’t come here to ruin our sovereignty. They came here because Gambia is a sovereign state, and a signatory to the ECOWAS protocols,” he explained.
He expressed dismay with the ISS report, which indicated a distrust between the President and national security, challenging the ISS to justify the statement as it is a serious allegation that needs to be justified.
“If they say there is distrust within the presidency, and the security forces, especially the national army, what will be their justification? Writing such an allegation should go with facts and justification because you are dealing with the highest authority of the State,” he stressed.
