By Ebrima Papa Colley (Gambiano)

Yes, it took Liberian Kenneth Y. Best to set the infrastructure. And as is crystally-evident in his appellation, “Best,” he did it best. Nigerians, Gambians, Sierra Leoneans, Senegalese, Congolese, etc., drew from the dividend best. Most of them now settle on Western shores.

If a name does really trail its bearer, Mr. Best’s has luminously served the apothegm. And if deed does really heed need, his Gambian transcript in putting up “The almighty Daily Observer” in the arms of providence itself seriously debates fate.

 It is not the intent of this piece to neither deify, nor chronicle any soul’s biography. But it is its strife to serenade the contributions of those who, even in the slightest sense of it, paved the way for two Sheriff Bojangs. Mention Baba Galleh Jallow, D.A Jawo, Muhammad Fauzee, Obiozor Williams, Paschal Eze—for these were all men of stature, resolute and keen-sighted.

A deluge of four and one Pas of a Pa Kalifa Sanyang, Pa Nderry Mbaye, Pa Ousman Darboe, Pa Modou Bojang, and a much later Pa Malick Faye came forth. Three of the Alieu Badaras (Alieu Badara Sowe, Alieu Badara Ceesay, Alieu Badara Mansary (Sierra Leonean) joined the nomenclature.

A cardinal sin would be forgetting the Sorries (Sorrie Ceesay, Sorrie B. Danso), Sariang Ceesay (My father), Buba Baldeh (RIP), Ben Gomez, Augustus Mendy, Lamin Jatta, Sheikh Kanuteh (RIP), Valentine Banjakey, Saikou Marenah, Phillip Gomez, Momodou Manuel Gassama, Ndey Tapha Sosseh, Isatou Badjan, Sainabou Kujabie, Bintou Jaiteh, Aji Sagar Mbaye, Francis Pabai and the sagacious Hassoum Ceesay.

The list defies infinity! But if Microsoft will let me, I shall write this one with my tears: Chief Ebrima Manneh. Brother, wherever you’re, these are lines from my viscera—that you left this world unannounced. You left me with three things: a tape cassette of Brenda Fassie (her too RIP), a camera, and this photograph below which you personally handed to me around July 1999.

Alieu Badara Sowe

Calm, and somewhat unassuming, he tarried in dangerous frontiers. His dare-devil beckoned him to fate’s own precincts, one of which was Bundung or Serrekunda Police Sation around the year 2000.

I always teased him with this Mandinka rendering, “Bee Nya Alieu Badara Sowe Leh muta jang. Woh Observer Journaliso,” (meaning, today we’ve arrested Alieu Badara Sowe. That Observer journalist). The paper did a back page full coverage of “Alieu Badara’s New Year Ordeal,” if memory serves me right. Today, he is in the U.K.

Pa Nderry Mbaye

His Mandinka amuses reason, as his distrustfulness. A shrewd, yet a sleuth type of journalist, his tenacity has sired Freedom Newspaper, a transcendence of the expected. Today, he can bask in the glory of his wont. When I first met him in the summer of 1999, he wore that countenance of vigilance as if I were a spy.

When that distrust was shelved, he would retort, “Papa Colley Yaalon iteh munnah mo leti (Papa Colley, you know you’re my guy. Please go get me some roasted peanuts). I was a little boy-boy reporter and cartoonist.

Demba Jawo

When I arrived at the Observer in 1999, he had left. But for reasons best known to themselves, he figured me out and became a mentor-like figure. I’d chance him at press conferences and other gatherings including where he asked Col. Babucar Jatta, “Are you APRC,” in the run-up to the 2001 elections. Jatta had glibly, or perhaps inadvertently said, “We” when talking about security in the country and the APRC as a party and government. The whole lobby burst into laughter.

Dr. Baba Galleh Jallow

He became the first ever, to publish anything from me in 1999 in his Independent Newspaper. Like D.A and others, he had left the Observer when I arrived in 1999, fresh from Gambia High School. But Papa Colley became “Gambiano”, far, far away from our Gambia, and Dr. Baba Galleh Jallow was still communicating with him, unawares.

“I guess you’ll be my scarlet Pimpernel,” he once told me when I refused to reveal my identity while writing online articles and pieces of literature. Baba, your Scarlet Pimpernel is no more! Behold! His head is once again silhouetted against Gambia’s journalistic canvas—this time with the vagaries of an unsure punctuality.

Ndey Tapha Sosseh

Her last word to me was, “Papa Colley, you wont even give me a hug?” September 2000, Banjul International airport when she was leaving for the U.K. “Hahahahaha,” laughed Sheriff Bojang Sr. with whom I went to see Ndey off.

Her mother, Adelyde Sosseh should really forgive me for not responding much to her call in 2002 when she said she needed some illustrations for some project. I was packing my bread crumbs to leave the Land of Kunta Kinteh for the Land of Donald Trump.

Lamin Cham

He has been at the vanguard of the country’s sports journalism with a rare gift. He swings both ways—print and broadcasting, in a way very few could. “Papa Colley,” he fondly calls me, is still an intonation that oscillates. One day, we heard ladies’ cry of danger in the “computer room” as the paper was being prepared for the next installment.

There was smoke in the room and everyone was fleeing. Cham left the ladies in the room and scrambled for the door. Those of us busy in the editorial or television room saw the Great Cham in front of the escapees. “Eh! Cham! You made it first to the door and left the ladies in the lurch?”

Sheriff Bojang Sr.

Lamin J. Darbo thought “Gambiano” was Sheriff Bojang Sr. A colorful mentation of himself, here is a man Gambia needs too seriously in literary frontiers. Like Halifa Sallah, I trust Sheriff’s diction and phraseology on CNN or BBC as to guarantee all Gambians a confluence of sharp intellection and fleet thought-processing.

Here is a man I can watch on the screen with a grin and say, “Yes! He’s from the land of Kunta Kinteh!” I have many fond memories of Sheriff that this piece couldn’t do much justice to. He would pick me in his red Mercedez Benz and drive all over greater Banjul area to Brikama, our Saatay Ba, and come back to Bakau and Fajara.

Such is how nostalgia stings! But unlike a gaboon viper, there is no venom. There is, but a sense of history—a sense of joy and fecundity of nurture even though we lost some of our colleagues by the lease of time. Thumbs up if you like the Sheriff-Lamin Cham longevity of togetherness. It’s like Youssou Ndour and Mbaye Geuye Faye. 

To be continued, insha Allaah!