An army captain has detailed how they thwarted an assassination plot on then president-elect Adama Barrow by Jammeh’s aides during the political impasse in 2016. 

Captain Lamin Saidykhan made the revelation on Wednesday during his testimony before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) on rights violations committed by Jammeh’s motorcade convoy during his 22-year rule. 

He said the plot was to have been executed as Barrow and the then president of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf 

travelled to Senegal.

“The day Barrow was to go to Senegal with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – there was an accident. That was the day a plan was laid down so that they would separate Barrow’s convoy from the convoy of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, so that they would do what they wanted to do to him.

“But we got the information, so we refused to let that happened. So, when they left, they were looking for me almost a week but I went into hiding,” he told TRRC.

He added “at nights we would put stones on the road leading to his (Barrow’s) house and then we would take cover so that if anyone come they would not be able to have access to his house.”

He said the day Jammeh refused to step down that “Barrow gave us money to buy cutlasses from the markets.”

The captain, who was dismissed from the army by former president Jammeh in 2012, said there were lots of accidents involving Jammeh’s convoy. 

He said the accidents involving the convoy happened due to over speeding and the throwing of biscuits and T-shirts which led to many fatalities. 

“The convoy accidents and the biscuits incidents would be up to 20 or more than that, and these accidents involved both categories there were old and there were young (people),” Captain Saidykhan told the TRRC. 

Reporting by Adama Makasuba