Gambian president fires Central Bank chief, three deputies

President Adama Barrow on Wednesday fired Gambia’s Central Bank Governor and three other bank officials considered loyal to former dictator Yahya Jammeh, a senior official at the bank said Wednesday.
Central Bank Governor Amadou Colley, two of his deputies and the bank’s financial director, who all served during Jammeh’s iron-first rule, received their letters of dismissal.
Central Bank senior officer Nuha Barrow said that the dismissals are part of Barrow’s attempts to re-establish democracy in the small Islamic republic and depose those who held high positions during Yammeh’s 22-year rule.
Since he took office on January 19, Barrow ordered the dismissals and arrests of numerous security, intelligence and government officials.
Jammeh, who caused weeks of political impasse by refusing to accept the result of the December 2016 election, stands accused of having committed wide-ranging human rights violations during his presidency, including torture, killings and abductions.
After weeks of regional pressure and the threat of arrest by West African troops who had entered Gambia, Jammeh eventually conceded defeat and went into exile in Equatorial Guinea.