By Momodou Sabally
I am bereaved doubly and I don’t know how to deal with it.
Words can’t express the emotions in me on the demise of two towering giants who have left indelible footprints in the sands of the times of the Smiling Coast of Africa.
Two men deep as oceans in their endowments of intellect and knowledge. High as the loftiest mountains in their visions and ambitions for the betterment of our societies.
The late Fafa Edrissa M’bai, former Attorney General and Minister of Justice was a close senior friend of mine who brought me inside his personal library to teach and inspire me in many ways.
He had so much hope and faith in my potential that he persistently recommended that I go to Law School because he thought I would make a great lawyer. I persistently told him I could no longer undertake such adventures due to my multifarious responsibilities; and the he offered that whenever I decide to go to school and qualify for the bar, he would wear his gown again and accompany me to the Supreme Court.
The Honourable Fafa. Oh dear Fafa! Lawyer, author and mentor. He served his country and he served with passion.
My good friend Foday Samateh once wrote about this icon of a lawyer-cum-statesman that whenever his country needed him during a crisis, they called upon him and he rose up to the occasion to serve his nation; but whenever they were out of that emergency, they discarded him to the wayside.
My words cannot fully convey the beautiful phraseology of the that wordsmith that Sheriff Bojang (former info Minister) once anointed as “Our Resident Philosopher”, Foday Samateh; but the essence of his thoughts are presented above by a weaker mind.
After almost a week of planning to write something about the later Fafa M’bai, and then being roused by the demise of yet another icon, former Foreign Minister and ambassador Dr Momodou Lamin Sidat Jobe, here’s the first part of my attempt at eulogising two great souls. Two towering giants whose legacy can never be adequately described by my pen.
Momodou Sabally
Special Adviser to the President of the Republic of The Gambia
