After a hard-fought-for victory at the polls and there after over former president Yahya Jammeh, The Gambia’s new President, Adama Barrow has finally returned home.
Barrow who touched down in his home country on Thursday will be the country’s first new commander-in-chief in two decades after a political crisis that sent the previous ruler into exile.
Gambians eagerly awaited Barrow at the airport in Banjul amid tight security. Barrow defeated Jammeh in December elections, but the veteran leader did not want to cede power.
Barrow was sworn into office on January 19 at the Gambian Embassy in neighboring Senegal because of security threats as Jammeh clung to power.
Jammeh finally left Gambia last weekend, bowing to international pressure that included a regional military force, ending a more than 22-year rule.
The West African troops were poised to oust Jammeh by force if diplomatic talks failed. The country’ military had already taken a position behind the regional forces, stating that it was not going to engage in a useless war.
There are currently 2,500 of the ECOWAS troops still in Gambia — in the capital, Banjul, as well as at key crossing points between Gambia and Senegal and at the port and airport, according to Sweden’s U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog, the current U.N. Security Council president.
