02/05/2025
PART ONE OF THE SERIALISATIONS OF CONFISCATED ASSETS OF THE DICTATOR!
The assets of Gambia’s former dictator, go for a song!
April 30, 2025, Mustapha K. Darboe
Mustapha K. Darboe
After 22 years of rule in his poor, indebted country, Yahya Jammeh reluctantly went into self-imposed exile to Equatorial Guinea following a shocking election defeat to Adama Barrow. A State investigation into his alleged financial wrongdoings found he had stolen at least $362m, lavishly spent on expensive vehicles, aircraft, and real estate.
All his assets were forfeited to the State.
Still, the process of recovering his loot has been marred by alleged corruption, with officials of the current administration allegedly selling assets to friends, family, and themselves at prices only a fraction of their worth. To the public, information about buyers of these assets, the amounts at which they were sold, and the circumstances are left much to speculation despite repeated questions by journalists, activists and lawmakers.
So far, only $23 716 725 has been recovered from the sale of his 35 real estate holdings, including a vehicle garage, livestock, five aircraft, 458 vehicles, 197 tractors, shares in four companies, dividend payments from three companies, and valuable items found at his Dunes Resort and Casino.
Pulling the rug under the court’s feet!
In 2018, a High Court Judge, Hon. Justice Mrs Amina Saho-Ceesay (as she then was), froze some of the former president Yahya Jammeh's assets at the request of the Justice Ministry under ex-minister Abubacarr Tambadou. Justice Saho-Ceesay appointed Augustus Prom as the Receiver.
Without the knowledge of the Court, Tambadou reportedly sacked Prom and subsequently hired another firm, Alpha Kapital Advisory LP, tasking it to dispose of the assets of Yahya Jammeh. Alpha Kapital is a partnership owned by Alpha Amadou Barry and Abdoulie Barry, which was registered on September 21, 2017, about two months after the investigation into the finances of the former dictator Jammeh. Alpha is a chartered accountant who, sources say, is a close friend of former justice minister Tambadou, a claim Tambadou denies. “Until this point in time, I had never had any personal or professional relationship with Mr Barry, let alone describe the relationship as an acquaintance,” said Tamabdou. Little is publicly available on Alpha’s partner Abdoulie.
The details of how the firm was selected remain murky, as the position was never advertised or approved by the Gambia Public Procurement Authority, according to the Agency. Tambadou said appointments in asset recovery processes are not usually “subjected to public advertisement.”
Alpha Kapital was hired in the second week of June 2019, three months after the Commission submitted its report to President Adama Barrow and one year and ten months after the firm was registered. Tambadou said the firm was hired by the ministerial committee comprising himself, former tourism minister Hamat Bah, and former lands minister Musa Drammeh.
In a letter to the Chief Justice on various issues, Hon. Justice Saho-Ceesay protested that the sacking of a court-appointed Receiver using “administrative procedures” is “unknown to law”. “The fate of respondent’s (Yahya Jammeh) properties and companies is not known to the Court as no subsequent report was filed by the Trustee…,” said Justice Saho. “The case file, however, remains open.” Since then, the Ministry of Justice has not applied to Justice Saho-Ceesay for the closure of the file or the discharge of the appointment of a court-appointed receiver, Augustus Prom. Tambadou said Prom was never sacked. “Instead, his appointment as interim receiver was allowed to continue until its natural end together with the temporary freezing order granted by the high court,” said Tambadou.
Enter MOAB Capital!
The relationship between Hon. Justice Saho-Ceesay and the Tambadou-led justice ministry became sour in July 2018. The Ministry applied to release the plots of Jammeh’s land within the Tourism Development Area frozen by the High Court, but Hon. Justice Saho-Ceesay refused the release order.
On June 14, about three weeks before the application, Tambadou wrote to the Janneh Commission in a letter that was copied to the former minister of tourism, Hamat Bah, requesting a ‘no objection’ to releasing the lands. Tambadou said the lands would be used to develop facilities, including 6 five-star hotels and 5 four-star hotels with an estimated 3,110 beds in preparation for both the tourism season and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit initially scheduled for November 2019.
Hon. Justice Saho-Ceesay argued that the release of Jammeh’s landed properties for use by the State without any forfeiture order from the Commission would be a “travesty” of justice.
“For the government to descend upon the Respondent’s properties at this point, in the absence of the conclusion of the criminal investigation and a subsequent order of confiscation, will, with respect, amount to nothing short of a travesty,” said Hon. Justice Saho-Ceesay in her ruling in July 2018.
When the High Court was on vacation, the Ministry of Justice filed the same application before a vacation judge, Hon. Justice Ebrima Jaiteh, who released the assets. A furious Justice Saho-Ceesay wrote to the Chief Justice protesting the Ministry’s action and the varying order issued by Hon. Justice Jaiteh.
On January 27, 2025, Justice Jaiteh confirmed to The Republic that his court was blindfolded into making this decision, which was an apparent “abuse of process”. “They should have filed an appeal against the court decision at the Court of Appeal and not file a fresh case before me. I was not aware of Amina's judgement. It was an abuse of process,” said Hon. Justice Jaiteh. But former minister Tambadou said their application before Justice Jaiteh was fresh with additional details, adding that submitting “two separate applications before courts of similar jurisdiction” could not “be qualified automatically as an abuse of process”.
The evidence filed before the parliamentary committee that investigated land allocations made by the Gambia Tourism Board in 2023 shows that one of the parcels of land released by Hon. Justice Jaiteh was allocated to MOAB Capital Company, a business registered in January 2019 and owned by Binta Sompo Ceesay. The 6.10 hectares of land, with lease number K355/2009, stretches from Djembe Beach to Palma Junction.
Binta was reported to be a friend of former minister Tambadou during this process. Several sources told The Republic that she participated as a sales agent for the Alpha Kapital Advisory, the firm hired to dispose of the assets and shares of the ex-president Jammeh. Tambadou and Binta would marry in December 2022.
Tambadou said her relationship with Binta started in 2010 when he hired her as an agent to rent out his property in Bijilo. In mid-2019, he instructed her to sell their family’s property at the Fajara Golf Course. “By sheer coincidence, this private land sale transaction occurred around the time that the sale of Jammeh’s assets had commenced… it, most likely, must have given rise to the speculations that she was somehow involved in the Jammeh assets sale process whereas this was utterly untrue.”
Aside from the ‘flawed court process’ through which the ministry released the plot of land refused by Hon. Justice Saho-Ceesay, a group of Gambia Tourism Board staff alleged in 2020 that the former tourism minister Hamat Bah interfered in the allocation of land to MOAB, which occurred despite the owner failing to pay the mandatory 5% levy of $50, 000. MOAB’s project was initially valued at 4 million dollars, which put her 5% levy to be paid to the Gambia Tourism Board at $ 200,000, according to the GT Board staff who wrote the petition to the parliament. Tambadou was chair of the ministerial committee that oversaw the sale of Jammeh’s assets. The former tourism minister, now the local government minister— Hamat Bah— was a member of the ministerial committee.
Binta paid the levy in July 2020, about a year after receiving the provisional allocation from the Gambia Tourism Board. The parliamentary inquiry also found that she was issued a sublease in ‘violation of land allocation procedures’. As the parliamentary investigation was ongoing, over a year after MOAB’s provisional allocation was made, the Ministry of Communication claimed the land she was allocated. The Gambia Tourism Board then suggested another plot in Tanji as compensation, something Binta turned down in 2022. MOAB’s allocation was cancelled in January 2023, and the $ 50,000 levy was paid, according to the Gambia Tourism Board. Our questions to Binta were not replied to until the time of this [publication.
“There is a need for more investigation on the land issued to MOAB Capital Ltd, and the investor acquired a lease before paying the 5% levy, which was only paid after the petition was made,” concluded a parliamentary inquiry. “If the petition was not done, the Gambia Tourism Board may not have received the $200,000 (later reduced to $ 50,000) development levy.” Three staff members of the GT Board who were part of the petition to parliament told The Republic that their former director Abdoulie Hydara reportedly told them to hasten the application process because Tambadou was the owner.
We could not independently verify this. “I can confirm that the plot allocated to MOAB was not mine,” said Tambadou. “However, since I might have, on a few occasions, innocuously enquired about progress in the matter on her behalf, I will not rule out the possibility that this could have created the perception that I was an interested party.”
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Thank you for being a part of the OPEN GAMBIA PLATFORM community. Mustapha K. Darboe contributed to the article published in the Republic.gm Investigation Journal on April 30, 2025! Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of TheOpenGambiaPlatform!
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