Gambia: Normalisation contradictions go to press

Normalisation Own Goal: Such doubts were seen to be forthcoming and had they gone to press as did the contradictions from the normalisation, would have had chilling effect on the committee, or didn’t it? (Photo Credit: Total Football)

M.B. Jones: Fearless newspaper as an indispensable tool for progress

54 years on this May, M.B. Jones’s strong editorial statement is still relevant in today’s Gambia, a developing country where a small independent press is stifled.
taken by משתמש:Hmbr (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“A fearless, outspoken, unbiased newspaper is not only a desideratum to a backward and underdeveloped nation, but an indispensable tool for progress,” Gambian journalist Melville Benoni Jones wrote in an editorial in the Outlook on May 3, 1960.

Historical chronicles about Mr Jones writing and journalism has shown him to be radical and an activist journalist who wrote with authority.

In a recent account, a Gambian historian described him as having combined “crusading journalism with militant politics and trade unionism to challenge British colonial rule.”

But what did the man popularly known as “M.B. Jones”, whose work pre and post colonialism included the fight for a free and independent press, meant by (a fearless, outspoken, unbiased newspaper… indispensable tool for progress)?

A nurse and journalist who was truly fearless in confronting authority in both Church and State

Mrs Bijou Edith Ernestine Bidwell Nee Peters 1927 – 2014

Bijou Peters (Photo credit: Gamcotrap)

Bijou Edith Ernestine Bidwell Nee Peters was the eldest daughter of the late Mr Lenrie Peters and Mrs Kezia (Broderick) Peters of Bathurst (now Banjul), The Gambia. 

She was born on the 29^th of March 1927 in Freetown, Sierra Leone and educated in her school days at St. Mary’s Anglican Primary School and Methodist Girls High School, under the educationist Mrs Norah Senior, MBE and missionary from Somerset, UK. She was Head Girl and passed the senior Cambridge School Certificate Exam.

She died on February 12, 2014 at 86 years of age. Prayers where held at St. Paul’s Parish Church, Fajara and buried at the Banjul Cemetery on Monday, March 3, 2014.

Again, GPU ask Gambia government to investigate killing of Deyda Hydara

“The killers of Deyda Hydara must be brought to justice now,” demands Gibairu Janneh, the journalists Union’s executive director (Photo credit: Unknown)

Prosecutors cut one of six charges against editor Jobe

 

Daily Observer Editor Alagie Jobe has been in State custody since his arrest in February 2013