Bunja Darboe, a Gambian army major, has revealed details about the circumstances surrounding the 2006 failed coup and the reasons why they wanted to seize power from former president Jammeh.

Mr. Darboe was the second witness on Thursday to testify before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission at Dunes Hotel.

He said the Gambia security services especially the army was politicise by Yahya Jammeh who he said was using the army for his own political ends.

He told the Commission that despite the appointment of former Chief of Defence Staff of the Gambia Armed Forces, Colonel Ndure Cham, that he didn’t want Jammeh’s regime to continue ruling.

He said “Ndure Cham came with his own mindset—I tendered my resignation to him and told him to forward it, he told me no, why would you want to leave the army that want people like you.”

Mr Darboe said Ndure Cham was very confident about the coup adding that Cham told him that he had support from many Gambian military officers and soldiers.

“In a nutshell he was telling me that we should plan to remove Yahya Jammeh but I was adamant to leave and he throw my resignation letter in front of me and said that I am not leaving and that let’s work,”he added.

He said that Ndure Cham told him that lots of senior officers in the country had given their support to him to topple Jammeh, adding that the reasons behind the coup were “unlawful detentions, lack of freedom of speech and that the army was politicise.

“We went and had a meeting with a colonel in Senegal who wanted to give support to us while we were on our way to Niamey,” he said.

But he told the Commission that “there was no proper planning about the coup. We had no meeting, it was only Ndure Cham who was organising the coup. We wanted to do it the very day the president flew to Mauritania but Ndure Cham said no let’s do it the next day.”

In 2006, a group of Gambian soldiers led by the then Army Chief Colonel Ndure Cham staged a coup against former president Yahya Jammeh while he was in Mauritania which failed as ‘it was said to have been leaked by some soldiers.’

Reporting by Adama Makasuba