The Gambian government on Wednesday announced it was pulling out of the Commonwealth with immediate effect, without providing further details. \"(The) government has withdrawn its membership of the British Commonwealth and decided that the Gambia will never be a member of any neo-colonial institution and will never be a party to any institution that represents an extension of colonialism,\" it said in a statement. The Commonwealth bloc is a voluntary association of more than 50 countries, many of them former territories of the British empire.