A highly respected historian has called on the nation to celebrate Gambian journalism as it was journalists who paved the way for the country’s independence from Britain 

Hassoum Ceesay, who is the director general of the National Centre for Arts and Culture, made the statement on the eve of The Gambia’s independence anniversary on February 18. 

Mr Ceesay said: “Journalism played a key role in The Gambia’s independence. That’s why we should respect the work of the journalists because when we say today the new Gambia because it is the journalists who helped Gambia to gain its independence. 

“They are the ones who paved the way, then people like Sir Dawda and Pierr Njie, JC Faye and IM Jahumpa followed who all played a role in the nation’s independence.”

“But it was the journalists who first paved the way for independence. And if you ask me, I will say Edward Francis Small first started that,” Mr Ceesay added.

It was Edward Francis Small, a journalist, trade unionist and statesman, who used his newspaper The Gambia Outlook to campaign for self-determination for the Gambian people. 

The Gambia will celebrate its 56 years of nationhood on Thursday. A former British colony, The Gambia gained its independence in 1965 after 400 years of British rule. 

Reporting by Adama Makasuba