Thousands of people are gathering in The Gambia for the inauguration of the country's new president, Adama Barrow, after a lengthy power struggle forced him into exile.

According to Ceoafrica, various African heads of state are expected at the ceremony, which Adama Barrow is only the third president in the history of The Gambia.

He was sworn in last month in a low-key event in neighbouring Senegal before his predecessor agreed to step down and today’s much larger scale ceremony is taking place in a stadium near the Gambian capital, Banjul.

The celebrations also mark 52 years of the West African country's independence and it was gathered that crowds queued through the night to get a good spot inside the stadium in order to witness national history, which Brass bands prepared to play alongside flag hoisting.

Long-time leader Yahya Jammeh was voted out in December but he only agreed to step aside when regional powers sent in troops ready to remove him by force, and he has since fled to Equatorial Guinea.

Adama Barrow has promised a new dawn for the country, which Mr Jammeh ruled with an iron fist.

Many political prisoners have already been freed and The Gambia is set to re-join international institutions such as the International Criminal Court and the Commonwealth.

Barrow, a successful property developer who has never held public office, defied the odds by winning the election and moments before the Gambia’s December polls, he told reporters that Gambians "had been suffering for 22 years" and were ready for change.

His predecessor had once told reporters he would rule for a billion years, if necessary.