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President Yahya Jammeh has appointed a Nigerian man
as Gambia's top judge after sacking the only woman to have held the
post, his office said on Thursday.
Emmanuel Fagbenle takes the role of "acting chief
justice", according to a presidential statement, after Ghanaian-born
Mabel Yamoa Agyemang was "relieved of her appointment" without
explanation on Monday.
The brief communique gave no biographical details for
Fagbenle, although he has been cited by local media as presiding over
many high-profile cases in recent years and was sworn in as a Court of
Appeal justice five years ago, according to a government release dated
from 2009.
Agyemang replaced another Nigerian, Joseph Wowo, who
became mired in a bribery scandal in July last year and was jailed on a
string of corruption charges in January.
She had been practicing law in Gambia since 2004, when
she was appointed as an expert appeal court judge after working in her
native Ghana.
The president regularly reshuffles his cabinet and
judiciary in what many observers say is a sign of insecurity and runs
several key ministries himself, including defense and religious affairs.
Jammeh sacked five cabinet ministers in August as part
of a ruthless shake-up of the government which saw his justice minister
lose her job.
Jammeh, who has ruled mainland Africa's smallest country
with an aura of mysticism and an iron fist since seizing power in 1994,
vowed ahead of his swearing-in for a fourth term in 2012 to eradicate
corruption.
In the same year, former information minister Amadou
Scattred Janneh was sentenced to life in prison for treason for
distributing T-shirts which featured the slogan "End to Dictatorship
Now".
A sliver of land nestled within Senegal, Gambia has over
the years also seen the arrest and jailing of a number of senior
military and police officers for crimes relating to treason, drug
trafficking and corruption.
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