The Oil Questions Gambians Must Ask Before the 2026 Elections

Opinion piece by: Seringe ST Touray
Editor-in-Chief of The Fatu Network

For almost two years now, a quiet but important story has been unfolding about The Gambia’s offshore oil. It is not the kind of story that dominates daily headlines, but it is one that could shape the future of this country for generations. At its heart lies a simple question: do Gambians truly know what is happening with our potential oil resources?

This question matters because oil, if discovered and managed properly, could help transform the lives of many people in this country. The Gambia remains a nation where too many families struggle to meet basic needs. Young people search desperately for opportunities, sometimes risking their lives trying to leave the country. Reliable electricity, better hospitals, stronger schools and new industries all require resources. Oil, if it exists in meaningful quantities, could provide some of those resources.

The issue centres on exploration that took place in Gambian waters in offshore areas known as Blocks A2 and A5. These areas lie in the Atlantic Ocean near Senegal’s Sangomar oil field, which is already producing oil. Oil reservoirs beneath the ground do not follow the borders that countries draw on maps. Sometimes they stretch across boundaries. When that happens, neighbouring countries usually discuss how to share and manage those resources fairly. For this reason, the results of drilling in Gambian waters are extremely important. They help determine whether oil exists, whether it can be produced commercially, and whether there may be connections to neighbouring oil fields. Yet the full details of those drilling results have never been clearly explained to the Gambian public.

Over the past two years, British-Gambian lawyer Ousman F. M’Bai has been the most persistent voice raising questions about these matters. Through a long series of investigations, letters, legal filings and public commentary published by The Fatu Network, he has attempted to piece together what happened during the years when foreign oil companies were exploring Gambian waters. Some of these questions are now before the Supreme Court of The Gambia, where a public interest petition is seeking answers about the handling of the country’s offshore oil resources.

Mr M’Bai has written open letters to companies such as FAR Ltd, an Australian oil exploration company that previously held The Gambia’s A2 and A5 offshore blocks, and Woodside Energy, a much larger Australian oil and gas company that operates Senegal’s Sangomar offshore oil field near Gambian waters. He has submitted formal information requests to the Gambia Petroleum Commission. He has contacted foreign regulators and even raised the matter before regional bodies such as ECOWAS, as well as Gambian courts. At each stage the message has been consistent: the Gambian people deserve transparency about their natural resources.

Whether one agrees with every argument Mr M’Bai has made is not really the issue. What matters is that many of the questions he has raised remain unanswered. Key drilling data has not been publicly released. Important decisions about licences and offshore boundaries have not been fully explained. In some cases, letters and requests for clarification have simply gone unanswered. In his June 7th 2025 open letter to FAR Ltd, Mr M’Bai warned that “transparency, equity, and accountability should not be optional when operating in resource-dependent and governance vulnerable jurisdictions.” That statement goes to the heart of the concern many Gambians now feel.

One of the most controversial issues concerns changes made in 2023 to the boundaries of one of The Gambia’s offshore exploration blocks. According to independent analysis published in GEOXPRO Magazine, Issue 4 (2025), the northern boundary of Block A2 shifted by roughly one kilometre. The timing of that change, which occurred shortly before FAR Ltd exited its Gambian licences in 2023 without completing all the exploration work originally required under its licence, has raised understandable questions.

Mr M’Bai has argued in several publications that the adjustment appeared to remove the most promising section of the block near the location of the Bambo well, one of the offshore test wells drilled in Gambian waters during the exploration campaign. Whether he is right or wrong can only be determined if the full technical drilling data is made public.

These developments do not automatically mean wrongdoing occurred, but they do create a strong need for transparency. When decisions affecting potential national wealth are taken, citizens have the right to understand what happened and why. Oil exploration is complicated, and not every well leads to a commercial discovery. That is normal in the oil industry. What is not normal is when basic information about exploration results remains difficult for the public to access, especially after the companies involved have left the country.

For a country like The Gambia, natural resources carry enormous importance. If significant oil reserves were ever confirmed, they could bring opportunities that few Gambians have experienced before. Properly managed, oil revenues could support national development for decades. Poorly managed, they could disappear while ordinary citizens see little benefit. This is why transparency is so important. Citizens must know what resources their country may have and how those resources are being managed.

Unfortunately, Gambians also have a habit that sometimes works against us. We become concerned about an issue for a short period, debate it intensely, and then move on as attention shifts elsewhere. Important questions fade from public discussion before they are properly answered. The story of The Gambia’s offshore oil must not be allowed to follow that path. As Mr M’Bai himself wrote in one of his appeals, “the right of the Gambian people to know is not subordinate to diplomatic delays or procedural silence.”

As the country moves toward future elections, Gambians at home and in the diaspora should make this issue part of the national conversation. Candidates seeking public office should be asked clear questions about the country’s natural resources and what steps they will take to ensure transparency.

1. What exactly did the drilling in Gambian waters find?
2. Why has the full data not been publicly released?
3. What was the justification for changes made to offshore block boundaries?
4. And what steps are being taken to protect The Gambia’s interests if oil reservoirs extend across national borders?

These are not technical questions meant only for experts. They are basic questions about the management of national wealth. Natural resources do not belong to governments or companies alone. They belong to the people. Every Gambian has a stake in how those resources are handled. If everything has been done properly, transparency should only strengthen public confidence. If mistakes were made, openness allows them to be corrected. Either way, the country benefits from honest discussion.

What must not happen is silence, because if something as important as a country’s natural resources can pass without clear accountability, then we must ask ourselves a deeper question about the kind of nation we are becoming. The Gambia is more than its borders or its institutions. A country is defined by whether its people can demand answers and expect them to be given. If anything can happen in this country without accountability, then we do not truly have a country.