Thanks Mr Darboe for your exhaustive review of Hassan B Jallow's book. I am now reluctantly reading Kairaba's book, and I must say that your review enables me to avoid reading another justification for PPP's bungling of our nations affairs. Three quarter way into Kairaba's book, I will say that I have never read a more cunningly evasive book. Abdou sums it all up when he writes

"that neither Jawara nor Alhaji Hassan has gone any nearer to
taking responsibility for presiding over a process and a regime that
actively suppressed national ambitions...."

The book Kairaba, is written as if Jawara, the principal architect of the our first republic, is a mere observer of irresistible natural forces that the first republic must endure as a right of passage. For example, he writes casually about the collapse of parastatal institutions, without mentioning that the biggest disaster of all, the GCDB, is headed from its beginning by none other than his own untouchable brother in law.

And if you consider Kairaba the man, as opposed to the president, you are still left wondering which kairaba was Gambia's first president. A man who admittedly changed his name from Kairaba, to Saihou Almamy, to David Kwasi and then to Dawda Kairba, and changed his religion from Islam to Christianity and them back to Islam, never mind the multiple marriages; you are left with a feeling of a very unstable, though very intelligent character, whose raison d'etre in politics is to protect and maintain his privileged position as head of state, thought he writes dispassionately to the contrary.

Malamin

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