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Yayha Jammeh refuses to leave the pool table

Tony Campbell with a Cherwell exclusive on the Gambia’s democratic crisis: a president who refuses to give up the table when he loses

Cherwell has been told that Yahya Jammeh, President(ish) of the Gambia, has been found by the pool table of a bar, drunkenly refusing to leave despite the bar’s “winner stays on” policy.

This is in fact not the first time that Yahya Jammeh has shown disrespect for the informal policy, having assumed his status as Bar Pool Champion by threatening to glass the previous pool champion, President Sir Dawda Jawara, with a bunch of his reportedly “well hard mates” in 1996.

It is believed that Adama Barrow hammered Yahya Jammeh in a game of eight-ball pool, after which he told the bar “well when the eight ball goes down, the eight ball goes down.” He then jovially settled down into his seat with a drink.

However, things turned sour as Barrow proceeded to deposit 50p for the game, and Yahya Jammeh was heard yelling down the phone to his “well hard mates” that the game was in fact “total bollocks” and that “there’s no way I’m letting this pretender take my pool table” shortly before refusing to relinquish his cue, and waving it with menacing and vague intent in Adama Barrow’s direction.

Adama Barrow has since yelled that he wants the bar manager to investigate the pool table for evidence of tampering, despite the fact that no one has been allowed to touch the table since he assumed the Champion title, with many strong pool players being mysteriously barred from playing against Jammeh in the last year.

The bar manager, despite initially promising to come to check the table by the end of January, has since phoned in to say “this actually doesn’t seem that important,” and has instead promised to check in March if Jammeh and Barrow haven’t stopped arguing by then.

In an effort to calm tensions and resume the playing of pool—a vital component of the pub for any group of friends who can only kind of stand each other’s conversation—several West African leaders have piled into a taxi to the pub, and are reportedly offering Jammeh glasses of water and a nice bit of fresh air, and have suggested that he should probably let some other guys play pool while he settles down for a bit.

The flatmates of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, colloquially known as the House of Representatives have offered to let Yahya crash on their couch. This has disappointed many others who live in said block of flats, who consider Yahya Jammeh to be “a prick.”

NOTE: President Mohammed Abdel Aziz of Mauritania appears to have  helped  Jammeh into a cab home. Let’s hope he drinks some water before he goes to bed.

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