2014 Gambian coup d'état attempt

The 2014 Gambian coup d'état attempt broke out during the night of 30 December 2014, when gunfire erupted in the Gambian capital of Banjul.

Background

At the time of the coup attempt President Yahya Jammeh was out of the country, with sources differing on whether he was in France or Dubai. Jammeh, who himself came to power in the 1994 Gambian coup d'état, has experienced several attempted coups against his regime, and sometimes accused the United Kingdom and United States of being behind said attempts. Previously in November 2014, Jammeh condemned the European Union for its response to increasingly harsh anti-LGBT discrimination under his government. The following month those same measures caused the United States to drop the Gambia from one of its trade programmes.

Plotting the coup

In 2013, President Jammeh removed the commander of his Presidential Guard, Lieutenant Colonel Lamin Sanneh. Sanneh then fled to Washington, D.C. In America, he met Njaga Jagne, a fellow refugee from the Gambia and former officer of the Kentucky National Guard. Sanneh, Jagne, and a few others soon conceived a plot to overthrow President Jammeh.

Jagne convinced Cherno Nije, a Texan entrepreneur also from the Gambia, to help fund the project. Jagne also recruited Papa Faal, another Gambian and a veteran of the American army, as well as several Gambians living in Europe. Banka Manneh, another Gambian refugee and Sanneh's friend, claimed he would be able to gather a force of 160 soldiers from inside Gambia to assist in the coup.

Events

On December 30, 2014, the gunmen recruited by the plotters attacked the State House of the Gambia, the official presidential residence. Local media quickly identified them as having entered the country from neighbouring Senegal under the command of Lt Col. Lamin Sanneh. The gunmen engaged in heavy fire with government forces. Soldiers blocked several points of entry to the city, and a full blackout of the state radio and television was placed into effect.

The fighting died off later during the day. Banks and other businesses remained closed, with state radio playing traditional music and mentioning nothing of the night's events. Four people, including Sanneh and Njaga Jagne, were killed, and several more injured.

With the gunmen failing to consolidate control, the coup failed. Jammeh returned the following day. Jammeh reshuffled his cabinet on January 10.

Aftermath

After the coup failed, Papa Faal, one of the co-conspirators, entered the U.S. embassy in Dakar, Senegal seeking protection. However, he was instead interrogated. On January 1, 2015, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation raided homes in Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Texas as part of an investigation into the coup. That same weekend, the FBI also raided the offices of a Texas development firm. The owner of the Texas firm, Cherno Nije, was arrested at Washington Dulles International Airport and charged with violating the Neutrality Act of 1794. During the raid on Nije's home in Texas, the FBI found a manifesto entitled “Gambia Reborn: A Charter for Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy and Development,” as well as a spreadsheet detailing the coup attempt's $221,000 budget funded by Nije, who was a millionaire. Faal was also charged and later pleaded guilty. Two others, Alagie Barrow of Tennessee and Banka Manneh of Georgia, were also charged. Both later pleaded guilty as well.

The Washington Post later revealed that the FBI had interviewed Sanneh at his home in Maryland and thereafter tipped off Senegalese officials about the plot through the State Department.

See also

• Dawda Jawara
• History of the Gambia
• LGBT rights in the Gambia