In 1981, Gambia’s first president, late Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara left to attend the wedding reception of Prince Charles and late Diana. He suffered a coup while in England. But what was so special about a wedding that would force a head of state to risk such an unforeseen development? Jawara could have sent our foreign affairs minister, or a traditional chief. See, when our African leaders visit Gulf States or the West, please watch who receives them! 

Not even the Queen’s dog or the Arab leaders’ shoe-shiners care! Tony Blair was with Barrow at the Chatham House because he wasn’t prime minister anymore! Did Theresa May care? Did the Saudi King care when Barrow visited? Did the Qatari king ditto? Oh, lest we forget, just watch the U.N General Assembly speeches whenever most African leaders take turn to address it. Almost all the so-called powerful leaders from the West are usually not in attendance.

No, African leaders are too one-eight-human to be listened to even at a world body that is supposed to bring the human race together. That’s exactly how we’re seen. The equality is only on paper and lips. Please search it everywhere else and let us know as soon as you find it! Mugabe just died and his funeral became a taboo for our puppet African heads of states except three. Why? Because their puppet masters would rather not see them near Mugabe, dead or alive!

They let the same puppeteers pick our heroes and villains for us. They let them narrate our history for us! Such heads-of-states would rather celebrate Columbus and his legacy of pillage than honor Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Amilka Cabral, Sekou Toure, Etc! And they would shove down our throats that Edi Amin was Satan’s  own son!

Juliet Ryan is a home-comer and founder of Bla Xit ( a movement calling people of African descent to return home, to Africa). Marcus Garvey said the same! W.E.B  Dubois said the same as did other great minds of the African soil!

Africa needs to listen to Mrs. Ryan. It has to! She told forGambia, Wednesday,  that Gambia could have a Kunta Kinteh Day! We can add that Gambia celebrates Commonwealth Day! What’s common about what wealth, where, and how, especially, when Gambians are deported or denied visas into that which is said to be “common”?

Let us celebrate Kunta Kinteh! In a history of centuries (Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade), only one man stood out of millions! His name continues with every turn of history’s pages! It didn’t resist only the expectations of captivity, but the sickle of time! Let us commemorate a name that echoes even in the Arab world, Latin America, the Caribbeans, or Western Civilization itself albeit many seldom know anything about Gambia! Sister Juliet Ryan is right!

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