Peerless is level 1 of 4 in the The Gambia Hall of Fame: changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A veterinary surgeon who led The Gambia to independence and governed it for three decades, through a period when multi-party politics was the exception rather than the rule in the region.
Dawda Kairaba Jawara was born at Barajally on the River Gambia, trained as a veterinary surgeon in Glasgow, and came home as the colony's principal veterinary officer before entering politics with the Protectorate People's Party.
He became prime minister in 1962, took The Gambia to independence from Britain in February 1965, and served as president from 1970. What set his three decades apart was not economic transformation — the country stayed small and poor, dependent on groundnuts — but the fact that through all of it The Gambia held competitive multiparty elections, kept a free press, and did not lock up its opposition, at a time when almost every state around it had become a one-party system or a military government. He convened the meeting that produced the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and Banjul is where it was drafted and where its commission still sits.
A coup attempt in 1981 was put down with Senegalese troops and led to the short-lived Senegambia Confederation. In July 1994 he was overthrown by a group of junior officers led by Yahya Jammeh, and spent his exile in Britain before returning home in 2002. He died in 2019 and was given a state funeral.
He became prime minister in 1962, took The Gambia to independence from Britain in February 1965, and served as president from 1970. What set his three decades apart was not economic transformation — the country stayed small and poor, dependent on groundnuts — but the fact that through all of it The Gambia held competitive multiparty elections, kept a free press, and did not lock up its opposition, at a time when almost every state around it had become a one-party system or a military government. He convened the meeting that produced the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and Banjul is where it was drafted and where its commission still sits.
A coup attempt in 1981 was put down with Senegalese troops and led to the short-lived Senegambia Confederation. In July 1994 he was overthrown by a group of junior officers led by Yahya Jammeh, and spent his exile in Britain before returning home in 2002. He died in 2019 and was given a state funeral.
- Britannica — Dawda Kairaba Jawara
- France 24 — Dawda Jawara, first president of The Gambia, dies aged 95
- African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights — About the Charter
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