Background
Sheriff Mustapha Dibba was born on January 10, 1937, at Baddibu, north of the Gambia River, about 40 miles from Bathurst. The son of a Muslim traditional chief.
Sheriff Mustapha Dibba was born on January 10, 1937, at Baddibu, north of the Gambia River, about 40 miles from Bathurst. The son of a Muslim traditional chief.
He was educated at Armitage School and the Methodist Boys’ High School, which he left in 1957, before getting his GCE.
He started work as a clerk in the United Africa Company and continued working in the accounts department until he resigned to go into full-time politics. In February 1959, he helped Sir Dauda Jawara prepare the constitution of the People’s Progressive Party. He has been assistant secretary-general in the PPP ever since.
The party campaigned to get the franchise extended to the country districts. This bore fruit in the February 1960 elections, when he won a landslide victory in his home constituency of Badibu. He repeated the victory in the 1962 elections, when the PPP was returned to power and he was appointed Minister for Local Government. He became Minister for Works in 1966 and Minister for Finance in 1968, finally becoming Vice-President in May 1970 at the same time as Sir Dauda, his lifelong political colleague, acceded to the Presidency.
His functions as Vice-President were mainly ceremonial, although he was also leader of government business in the House. On September 15, 1972, he resigned from the Vice-Presidency, following an incident in which his halfbrother was travelling in a Landrover that was found carrying smuggled goods into Senegal. He was unaware that the smuggling had taken place and President Jawara, in accepting his resignation, wrote him a letter exonerating him from all blame. He maintained his position in the party.
Dibba was the Gambia's first vice-president. He resigned from that position in 1975 and later formed the National Convention Party (NCP). Following elections in 1977, the NCP became the main opposition party in the Gambia.
He was incarcerated in 1981 for alleged involvement in the foiled coup attempt that year, but was freed after 11 months in detention. A presidential election was held on 4 May 1982, months after a constitutional amendment instituting direct election of the country's head of state. Dibba was defeated by incumbent President Dawda Jawara. He ran again as the NCP presidential candidate in 1987 and 1992, placing second to Jawara both times.
Following the overthrow of the Jawara government in 1994, the NCP and other political parties were banned. The ban on the NCP was lifted in mid-2001 and Dibba contested the election held on 18 October of that year. He was defeated by incumbent President Yahya Jammeh and placed fourth out of five candidates, winning 3.8% of the vote.
Dibba then gave his support to Jammeh and his party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction, and after the legislative elections of January 2002, he was elected Speaker of the National Assembly at the first meeting of the new legislature on 3 February.
In April 2006, Dibba was arrested and dismissed as speaker; he was allegedly linked to the coup attempt against Jammeh in the previous months; Dibba himself was over 65 years old by this time and was therefore not eligible to run.
Open and friendly, his youthful appearance belies his political experience. A believer in the politics of tolerance and compromise with an easy-going democratic approach.