Lessons from just ended Gambia polls

It is no longer going to be business as usual in African leadership.

If the just-concluded polls in Gambia are anything to go by, then the established club of African strongmen has every reason to worry.

The latest Gambia polls in which opposition chief Adama Barrow garnered 265,000 polls against the incumbent Yahiya Jammeh's 263,515 ended 22 years of the latter's reign of terror.

The bold decision by the Gambia electoral commission head to declare Barrow president-elect on state television, with 45.5 per cent of the vote against Jammeh's 36.7 per cent, shows independent and credible electoral agencies in new Africa as opposed to the contrary should be encouraged.

Jammeh's defeat and concession was not only momentous but also a recipe for peaceful transition and a democratic environment.

This comes as an African political class continues to cling onto power, ranging from Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, 90, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni 71, Pierre Nzurunziza Burundi, Teodoro Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and Omar Bashir of Sudan inter-alia.

One of the great lessons of the past two decades is that political changes that ensure lasting peace and guarantee freedom and human rights have come through varied ways, including victories and efforts employed by the opposition. When people are fed up with corruption, poverty, unemployment and human rights abuses they slowly and quietly choose to punish the perpetrators of such deeds through the ballot.

Plans by Jammeh, who has ruled Gambia since taking power in a coup in 1994 and states like South Africa, Burundi and Namibia's intention to pull out of the International Criminal Court, show clearly that some African strongmen fear transparency and accountability.