Pictured: Mustapha K. Darboe (left) at the 2025 African Investigative Journalist of the Year awards; protests erupted in Banjul, Gambia following Darboe’s investigation (right) – image: The Republic.
Gambian journalist Mustapha K. Darboe’s meticulous investigation into the murky sale of assets belonging to the country’s former dictator Yahya Jammeh won him the runner-up prize at the highly contested third edition of the AIJC’s African Investigative Journalist of the Year Award last year.
Published by The Republic in April 2025, the investigation has since had significant national impact, prompting a months-long parliamentary inquiry which has now officially confirmed Darboe’s findings that the process meant to fund reparations for victims of Jammeh’s rule after his exile had been riddled with corruption and irregularities.
“A 324–page report of the special committee of the National Assembly which was adopted on Tuesday [10 March] revealed fragmented institutional arrangements, a poor documentation culture, and serious lapses in inter-agency coordination throughout the process of the assets’ disposal. Assets were often handled through informal practices and without proper legal authority,” reads the latest report published in The Republic.
The report also centres on former attorney general and minister for justice Abubacarr Marie Tambadou, who currently sits within the United Nations as Registrar of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
The inquiry committee found that Tambadou presided over a series of actions that violated provisions of the Public Finance Act of 2014 during the disposal of properties recovered through asset sale process.
Reflecting on the painstaking years he spent uncovering this story, Darboe explains the time it took had nothing to do with the complexity of the subject, but was rather due to the fact that the sales of Jammeh’s assets were not properly coordinated.
“Six different state institutions were involved in selling different things and all their records were held in different places,” says Darboe. “To make matters worse, none of them were interested in sharing this information. We could only pick one piece of evidence at a time until we had enough to show a clear pattern of abuse and total dereliction of duty on the part of people vested with the power to take care of these assets, or where they are to be sold, ensure value for money.
“All crimes are immoral, but very few come close to stealing from the dead or those who lost their limbs to torture. Jammeh was not only a corrupt leader; he ruined lives. The proceeds from the sale of his assets were intended to fund part of The Gambia’s transitional justice, including reparations for his victims identified by the country’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission.”
Darboe’s investigation and the parliamentary inquiry show that the people paid to ensure the victims of Jammeh’s rule receive these reparations are the same people who handled the dictator’s assets and their sale, key among them officials in the Ministry of Justice – as Darboe puts it, “a travesty of unforgivable proportions”.
“We are glad everyone is talking about it now, including Jammeh’s victims, over half of whom are still without their reparations.”
Looking forward, Darboe explains that parliament is now expected to put their recommendations forward for further investigations, and prosecutions into a resolution which will then be adopted.
“We hope people will lose their jobs and freedom because of their roles in this. We also hope the civil society will push for more accountability and further investigation into many things relating to Jammeh’s assets that we still don’t know about.
“According to most estimates, at the time of his fall from grace Jammeh was worth a billion US dollars – the total GDP of The Gambia and its total public debt at the time. A proper recovery of his loot would have helped solve many of this country’s problems. A lot more work remains.”