Gambia’s previous president and de facto dictator, Yahya Jammeh, who seized power in a coup in 1994, had increasingly promoted an Islamist agenda. In 2015, Jammeh declared that Gambia was an Islamic republic. The declaration was presented as a move away from the country’s British colonial past, but also signalled a renewed effort to increase the role of Islam in a country which has a secular constitution and has historically had a tradition of religious tolerance.