Adama Barrow

Gambia is Africa's smallest country. It occupies a strip of land on either side of the Gambia River, which rises in Guinea and flows through Senegal and Gambia before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. Gambia is approximately 200 miles from east to west, and never more than about 25 miles from north to south.

Adama Barrow was born in 1965 near Basse Santa Su, which is Gambia's easternmost town (i.e. the furthest from the Atlantic, and thus from the capital Banjul). After leaving school he worked for a Gambian energy company, where he became a sales manager. Moving to London in the early 2000s, he studied for qualifications in real estate and concurrently worked as a security guard. After returning to the Gambia in 2006, he founded his own real estate company and was its CEO until 2016. He became the treasurer of the opposition United Democratic Party, becoming its leader in September 2016 after the previous leader was jailed. Barrow was then chosen as the UDP candidate in the 2016 presidential election. It was later announced that he would stand as an independent, with the backing of the opposition group Coalition 2016 (a coalition supported by the UDP and six other parties).

Barrow won the election with 43.34% of the vote, defeating long–time incumbent Yahya Jammeh. Jammeh initially accepted the result, but later reneged on this, and Barrow was forced to flee to neighbouring Senegal. He was inaugurated at the Gambian embassy in Senegal on 19 January 2017, and Jammeh was forced to leave the Gambia and go into exile two days later. Barrow returned to the Gambia on 26 January.