On March 27, 2025 the editor of The Voice newspaper; the Gambia Press Union; the Media Council; and the Newspaper Publishers Association were summoned by the Gambian Minister of Information, Dr. Ismaila Ceesay.
The summon relates to a report in The Voice newspaper titled, Survey reveals corruption at the Presidency, National Assembly. The newspaper report was based on an Afrobarometer survey released in October 2024. The survey examined corruption and public trust in public institutions and reported a decline in citizens’ confidence in some government institutions, including the Presidency and the National Assembly.
The reason for the summon, as explained by the Information Minister on Coffee Time with Peter Gomez, a Radio Talk Show programme on West Coast Radio 92.1, is that the headline was misleading. In particular, the Minister argued that the use of the word “reveal” was damaging to the government, as The Gambia remains a young fragile democracy.
The case has sparked widespread debate about press freedom in the country, raising concerns about the role of the Minister in determining headlines of media content.
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) joins the media fraternity in The Gambia to strongly condemn the Minister’s summon. It was completely out of place for the Minister to summon the editor of The Voice Newspaper, the Gambia Press Union, the Media Council and the Newspaper Publishers Association over a word he was not comfortable with in a report’s headline. He could simply have written a rejoinder to the state facts, or filed a complaint with the Media Council.
This act of intimidation is not just against the parties summoned but against press freedom in the country. The newspaper report was based on an Afrobarometer report that had been published about six months earlier, yet the Minister did not summon the editors of the main report, but a newspaper that highlighted a segment of the report. We call on Dr. Ismaila Ceesay to render an unqualified apology to the media actors he summoned and to desist from such intimidating tactics.
