The press release by APP-Sobeyaa Party vehemently denying any wrongdoing by its leader Essa Mbye Faal in the controversial allocation of protected land near the Tanji Bird Reserve, it is not only an exoneration, Instead, a glaring confirmation of how power, privilege, and legal savvy are often used not to protect the public interest, but to undermine it.
Far from clearing Mr Faal of misconduct, the statement he approved offers a textbook example of elite complicity, bureaucratic manipulation, and legal distortion. It inadvertently reinforces why Gambians should be concerned not just about what land was allocated and how but about the deep rot in our governance systems that enables even those who once fought for justice to feel entitled to circumvent it.
Let’s examine what Mr Faal said and what it really reveals.
According to Mr Faal’s own account, he received provisional approval for state land in the Tourism Development Area (TDA) in 2020, an area overlapping or adjacent to the protected Tanji Bird Reserve. He admits to paying a $125,000 “development levy” before a site was even confirmed and before any environmental clearance or survey had been completed. That single act alone shows culpability.
Under Gambian law including the Lands Act, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations, and the Biodiversity and Wildlife Act state land, particularly within protected ecological zones, cannot be allocated or developed without due process: public advertisement, technical vetting, environmental impact assessments, and full inter-agency clearance.
Mr Faal is not a layperson. He is a former lead counsel of the TRRC and a seasoned international prosecutor. He cannot claim ignorance. His decision to pay first and clarify later backed by direct lobbying of both Minister Hamat Bah and President Adama Barrow was not just irregular. It was deliberately reckless.
Secondly, executive interference is Not a Defence. The statement makes much of the fact that Mr Faal met twice with President Barrow and once with Minister Bah to advocate for his land application. Rather than strengthening his defence, this detail confirms the central problem: the illegal fusion of executive power with administrative procedure. Land allocation should follow regulated acts by the government but not relationships. And the use of political influence to secure a favourable outcome from the Gambia Tourism Board (GTB), including selecting the site and fast-tracking the process, is a clear abuse of administrative norms. Any lawyer who respects the separation of powers would know this.
Instead, Mr Faal leaned into it.
In addition, he used his status and access to cut through layers of regulation that the average Gambian investor could never bypass. His claim that “no one asked him for a bribe” misses the point entirely: the corruption here was not in the envelope, but in the handshake.
In a particularly damning section of the statement, the APP-Sobeyaa Party admits that Essa Faal declared the land in question to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) as part of his assets during his 2021 presidential run despite being explicitly warned by the GTB not to do so.This is no small error. Under the Elections Act, false declaration of assets, especially willful misrepresentation of a provisional, disputed, or non-owned asset is grounds for disqualification, and potentially, a criminal offence.
Essa Faal’s explanation? He wanted to be “transparent” and “honest” with Gambians. That’s absurd. You cannot declare what you do not own. Being “honest” would have meant acknowledging the provisional nature of the allocation, the lack of legal title, and the dispute over the land’s status. Instead, he chose to mislead the public by presenting himself as a major land-owning investor, boosting his campaign credentials using state property he had no legal right
Yet again.he Ignored Red Flags about the Land’s Legal Status. Even the most charitable reading of Mr Faal’s actions reveals gross negligence. He admits that the GTB informed him the land was “recovered from Jammeh” and would require inter-ministerial clearance. He also acknowledges that an alternative site was offered, which he declined, opting instead for a contested location adjacent to or overlapping with the bird sanctuary.
A competent lawyer and certainly a former TRRC lead counsel should have walked away. Instead, Mr Faal forged ahead, banking on the fact that political backing would override legal complexity. That is not patriotism. That is opportunism.
His defence that “he has no land to return” is legally laughable. If he paid for the land and it was surveyed, signed a provisional agreement, and was declared as his own land, then yes, he has some form of claim. But Essa definitely lacks moral clarity here.
The statement accuses the Director of Parks and Wildlife of unlawfully attempting to expand the bird sanctuary by “giving himself legislative power.” But this argument is built on sand.
Under the Biodiversity and Wildlife Act, the Director of Parks and Wildlife is legally empowered to propose and advise on the gazettement of protected areas. The idea that an agency responsible for environmental protection is acting outside the law by doing its job is a deliberate misreading of statutory authority.
Essa Faal knows this. And yet, he doubles down on a distortion of the law in order to recast himself as a victim of bureaucratic overreach. In doing so, he exposes the central flaw in his defence: he is using his legal training to manipulate public opinion, not to uphold legal truth.
There’s a cruel irony in watching Essa Mbye Faal, for instance, paying $125,000 for land he never secured is “normal”;lobbying the President for land is “encouragement”; declaring unowned land as his is “honesty”;
And that the law is being broken not by him but by the civil servants who resisted him.
This is not a legal defence. It is a public relations smokescreen, one that would crumble under any impartial investigation.
Essa Mbye Faal may not have physically bulldozed the Tanji Bird Reserve. But he did something more dangerous: he tried to bulldoze the law itselfbwith influence, clever language, and elite privilege.
This case is no longer just about one man’s land deal. It is about whether Gambians are prepared to hold anyone accountable, regardless of their past roles or polished resumes. If Essa Faal, of all people, can escape scrutiny for using political power to grab land under the guise of investment, then the New Gambia he once spoke of is already dead.
The facts are public. The law is clear. What remains is the political will to enforce it.
And Essa Mbye Faal must be held to the same standard he once demanded of others: full accountability.
By Yoba Baldeh, Gambian based in UK.
