POSTHUMOUS HONOURS ARE BACKHANDED REPRIMAND FOR OUR CURRENT CROP OF LEADERS

Last year the ECOWAS Commission recognised the exceptional leadership of Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara. The first President of the Republic of Gambia with a posthumous award for Leadership Excellence presented to his surviving widow Her Excellency Lady Chilel Jawara and two of his sons Mr. Dawda Kairaba Jawara Jr. and Mr. Ebrima Jawara in Abuja Nigeria in the presence of His Excellency President Adama Barrow.

Staff of the National Centre for Arts and Culture NCAC made the nomination for this award to the ECOWAS Commission. Therefore, both the NCAC & the ECOWAS Commission must be commended in this regards. A few days ago, the news carried a similar recognition for leadership excellence of a very distinguished son of the Gambia. This time the accolades comes from the highly regarded organ of the United Nation Organisation the World Health Organization- WHO.

Again, we saw in the presence of the Hon. Health of Minister Dr. Ahmadou Samateh and the Resident Representative of WHO to the Gambia, the President presented the award to members of the late Dr. Ebrima Malick Samba former WHO Africa Regional Director. One of his sons Mr. Ebou Samba spoke on behalf of the family and President Barrow said Dr. Samba was a household name in the Gambia and that this recognition for Dr. Samba leadership qualities was a great honour for the Gambia.

In May of this year the veteran politician and Statesman Hon. Omar Amadou Jallow was awarded posthumously the Gambia’s highest national honour by the President on the scene of the State Funeral held to honour the life and legacy of Hon. OJ.

The similarity in all three cases is the fact that the recognition is richly deserved but did it come too late? In my view yes and the whole concept of posthumous awards needs to reviewed with a view to honouring the lives’ works of our nation’s finest and most eminent leaders during their lifetimes.

Therefore, it is refreshing to see that Mr. Karamo S Bojang erstwhile Principal of Nusrat Senior Secondary school is recognised for his achievements in the Gambia’s education sector by the regional Authority-West Africa Examination Council. The prestigious award of Distinguished Friend of Council is conferred on an eminent citizen for his/her outstanding contribution towards the attainment of WAEC’s objectives. The late great Poet Surgeon Dr. Lenrie Peters was similarly recognised during his his lifetime in the early 2000s.

The UN System in the Gambia also recognised Principal KS Bojang for his immense contribution to education in the Gambia in 2018. My beloved Principal of Gambia High School and former Minister of Education of the Gambia Dr. Satang Janneh-Jow, who is celebrating her 80th Birthday this year was awarded a doctorate degree Honoris Causa by the University of Gambia for her phenomenal contributions to educational attainment in the Gambia.

The Will of Alfred Nobel establishing the Nobel Prizes perhaps the most prestigious award in the world has a clear stipulation that the Prize be awarded to living laureate. In the USA, national honors both public and private are given to the living. I believe so is the case in most developed nations so the real question is why do we excel at such meaningless gestures across Africa? I believe the best way to remember our honored dead is to live by their values and ideals.

The wise words of President Abraham Lincoln are particularly apt to end with in this regard: 'The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."