Gambia's president pledges power relief as violent blackout protests erupt

For three months, The Gambia has been living without reliable electricity. Since June, blackouts have become the rhythm of daily life—some stretching past forty-eight hours, residents say. The heat builds during the day without air conditioning. At night, the darkness is complete. By Monday evening, patience had worn thin enough to break.

In Banjul and the surrounding areas, people took to the streets. They burned tyres. They blocked roads. They moved toward the headquarters of Nawec, the national electricity company, chanting for the president to leave. Police met them with tear gas, pushing back crowds in the Westfield area. At the vice-president's residence in Farato, protesters gathered outside. Banners belonging to President Adama Barrow's ruling party were torn down. The anger was not abstract—it was the anger of people who cannot sleep in the heat, who watch food spoil in unpowered refrigerators, who work and study in darkness.

Barrow addressed the nation on television the following evening. He did not dismiss the crisis. He acknowledged it plainly: fans had stopped turning, children were working in the dark, mothers were throwing away food that had gone bad, and the heat was unbearable around the clock. He called the situation a national security issue and an emergency. But he also warned against destruction. Damaging public infrastructure, he said, would only make things worse and drain money that should go toward solutions. "Let us not destroy in a moment of anger what we suffered so long to gain," he told the country.

The president framed the blackouts as part of a larger regional problem. The Gambia does not generate all its own power—it imports electricity from Guinea and Senegal. This year, rainfall across the region has been lower than usual, which means less water flowing through hydroelectric systems. A technical fault had also disabled a major generating unit that supplies imported power. Demand, meanwhile, has surged as temperatures have climbed during the hot season. The math is simple and brutal: less supply, more demand, no electricity.

Barrow pledged relief by the end of October. A new twenty-four-megawatt generating unit is being installed at the Brikama power station and will be commissioned by month's end, he said. For a country the size of The Gambia, this represents substantial new capacity. He also announced that a contract has been awarded for a fifty-megawatt solar power plant in Soma, though no completion date was specified. The president visited power facilities on Tuesday morning and promised that new generators would arrive within the week.

Gallo Saidy, who leads Nawec, echoed the call for patience. He confirmed that reduced electricity imports from the regional grid had contributed directly to the shortages and pointed again to lower rainfall as a factor beyond the utility's control. "We are aware of the frustration and constraints that the Gambian people have," he said. "We are just asking The Gambian people to give us a little bit of time and patience."

The timing of the crisis is politically delicate. The Gambia is scheduled to hold a presidential election in December. Barrow is seeking a third term—a move that has already drawn controversy. Unrest over blackouts, in the months before voters go to the polls, adds pressure to a political moment already charged. The president's acknowledgment of government shortcomings in planning, generation, and maintenance suggests an administration aware that the crisis reflects not just regional circumstances but also domestic failures. Whether the promised infrastructure arrives on schedule, and whether it arrives in time to cool public anger before the election, remains to be seen.