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Ya Arret Mboge:
 Lady of The Gambia renaissance
Friday, August 10, 2012
One of the
greatest Gambian female Socio-political leaders of the century is Ya Arret
Mboge. She was said to have played an important role in improving the lot of
the Gambian people. 


She placed great emphasis on Culture and the Arts and
helped to cement Gambia as one of the culturally dominant countries in West
Africa and laid down a clear moral and practical basis for extending human and
political rights to women and children. A true pioneer in the struggle for
female inclusion in the affairs of the Gambia; her life style left a
significant legacy. She was a campaigner for social justice, advocate of
women's rights and member of the Gambia Muslim Congress Party responsible for
social affairs.She also actively
campaigned for Gambia’s independence. 


Ya Arret Mboge came from
Banjul-Dingareh.She was born in
the early 1910’s in Banjul south, daughter of Matarr Mboge and Rose Joof.Her grandfather was Samba Joof the
trader with the thirty one sailing boats. As a boat owner he used to sail all
the way to Morocco. Ya Arret was married to Pa Kebba Landing Drammeh, a Civil
Engineer at the Gambia Marine Department at Wilberforce Street in Banjul, now
the Gambia Ports Authority.

She is the Mother of Ebou Drammeh, Pa Drammeh,
Pindo Drammeh (Sajoro), Ousman Drammeh (O Drammeh), Fatou Kinneh Drammeh, Oko Drammeh and Salieu Drammeh
(Sal). She was the Iron lady behind the Gambia Muslim Congress and steered
Garba Jahumpa to become the first Mayor of Bathurst. Her husband Pa Kebba
Drammeh runs the matrilineal Grand Place at Hagan Street for Gambia Muslim
Congress party politicians. 


Pa Kebba was the secretary and cashier (El-Amen)
called thetrusted one for the
Banjul community and the Gambia Muslim Congress which included late Pa Mass
Jobe, Abdoulaye Samba, Pa Gibou Faal, Mustapha Bittaye, Pa Assan Sagnia, Pa
Oussou Kah, Pa Salifu Ceesay, Alhagi Basiru Jagne, Pa Tuntu Joberteh and many
more Banjul elders.

Devoting her life to the service of
Banjul, the poor and dispossessed,she became an icon for selfless service to others through her home at
22, Hagan Street of Charities. She personally cared for over 1000s of youths in
her time and sending many to school and provided accommodation for many
children from the country side, the Kombo region of the Gambia and from the
Upper River region as well as professional working tribe’s men and women from
Senegal and all over the Gambia who had no home in Banjul. 


Her home in Banjul
was the central youth gathering were food, water and clothes were provided for
anyone including the homeless, sporting youth and social clubs all in this one
compound. The spirit of the Soto Koto Tree at 22, Hagan Street can bear witness
to this. This popular Soto Tree is the Soto Koto Youth Club and the Soto Koto
Band, a United States African based music band which derived their names from
this sacred tree.

Ya Arret was an organizer of community
events, social functions, political rallies, cultural program and festivities.
Most of the public meetings of the Gambia Muslim Congress were usually held at
her house, the Gambia labor union meetings also were held by Dodou Massanneh
Ceesay at her place and occasionally the Gambia workers Union under M.E.
Jallow- Jallow were held at her gate front. The compound were Ya Arret lived
was a center of political activism for young and old.

She was known as, the "Yayi compin
of Banjul”, a wollof word meaning a community and social class leader. She was
an inspirational leader and also had a male Club as well. Ya Arret Mboge was
widely loved by the ordinary people of the Gambia. She nurtured many ladies as
well as supported their marriage and the discipline system of good conduct and
mended differences in the community.

She
campaigned tirelessly for both the poor and for the extension of women’s
inclusion in politics and social affairs. It was in front of her compound gate
where you had the Hyde Park Vous which included members like the late late
Matarr Sarr, Tamsire Jagne, Kabba Jallow, Nurainu CarewPe’ngu George, Dodou Sankere, Dr. Lamin
Ndow, Alieu Kah, Abou Denton, Fisco Konateh, Babou Mbye, late Saul Samba, Mam
Barra Taal, Hatib Janneh sr, Ousman Sillah, Pa Cham, Seedy Jow, Pierre Mendy,
Uncle Amadou Samba, Modou Jaiteh, Arona Siki Badlin Jallow, and supervised by
Dr. Peter Ndow (Dr. Ndow). 


Later the Soto Koto Vous, under the stewardship of
late Pindo Drammeh was formed there, as well as F.A. Championship winners
Dingareh Football FC and the young ITC football club. Ya Arret was one of the
most innovative and fashionable woman of her time with designers garments and
was instrumental in defining cultural feminine style and dress during her time
as social event organizer. 


Her ideas were revolutionary; in particular she
often took authentic ancient tribal clothes and redesigned them for the benefit
of younger women. Her lifestyle was an aura of glamor and sophistication,
unconventional. She helped redefine traditional views of women’s role in
society. 


She
contested against the decisions of the white Governors of Banjul which were not
favored by the people. She faces the white establishment face-to-face on
matters affecting the community. She was a liberator and received many
magazines and newspapers for public information in her name from numerous
sources through her connections with I.M. Garba Jahumpa i.e: the Voice of
Africa from Ghana, the Palisario, China pictorial, Gramma from Cuba ,Shechaba
from Azania, SWAPO, ANC, Oromo Papers from Ethiopia, SWAPO, etc. and many
pamphlets including the collection of Kwame Nkurumah books and writings. There
was a saying that whenever Garba Jahumpa leaves the Gambia, the West would
worry. The West never wanted Garba Jahumpa to lead the Gambia. They feared that
he would hand it over to the Communist Eastern bloc. 
Ya Arret was a cultural Ambassador for
the Muslim Congress who introduced many activities in the capital city of
Banjul, then Bathurst including the grand Sabarr fetes, Makalo-Sara (the
dancing masquerades), Fanals and Lanterns. These Lanterns and fanals were a
catalogues of the boats and houses that were to be built in coming years after
successful trade seasons designed on request of the elite traders. 


Each trader
would have his new boat designed by an architect and made in a miniature with
bamboo “tara “, sticks, pim-pim-bamboo pins and florist paper, graphics colored
with Tai-Nyapa (soft colored papers) to give the miniature boats and houses the
paint and lightening system the boats and houses will be fitted with. The
fanals would parade onChristmas
week and visit all the boat owners and society elites and display the work of
art design in boats and lanterns accompanied by drumming and singing crowds. At
the end of the Christmas week, the boats will be handed over to the persons
whom the boat carry the design of his boat and same with the lantern houses. 


The fanal builder for Ya Arret was a blind man by the name of Omar Fofana, the
late Omar Gumbo Fofana of Buckle Street. Omar was made to meet with Queen
Elizabeth II on her visit to Banjul. Omar also worked on the many Arches that
were built around Banjul including the Grand Arch on Hagan Street on the Queens
visit in 1958. All these arches were supervised by Ya Arret Mboge. Ya Arret
meet Queen Elizabeth II at government house in Banjul.

Ya Arret had a popular annual ritual
Simba feest (Man-lion theater) a traditional wollof folk theater masquerade and
performed by Abdoulaye Jobe, a Butcher at Albert market. He was the real lion,
with red eyes and mascara and acted as a lion, chased people and scratched them
with his finger claws. The show is real fun for all in the family and
accompanied with the taming songs and narrations carrying traditional code
words and lamentations known in the tribal wollof language as (Djaat)), that is
only known to be thought to the wise of the Simba Circles. 


Ya Arret also brought to the Gambia the
legendary drummer Aly Gaye of Senegal who was the godfather of wollof drumming
in the 1950’s and 60’s in the sub region. Although, she favored drummer was
Batch Samba Nying, the father of Nyaw Nying, Sira Beyay Nying, Late Alhagi
Nying, Pa Nying and family. Batch affectingly known as the drummer of the
Congress Party while the other master drummer in Banjul Malick Mbenga who was
the drummer of the United Party under Pierre Njie. 


They were the two Masters
wollof drummers of the Gambia in the early 50’s and 60’s. There was only one
Tama Drummer in the scene that time and that was Dodou Mboob, the father of
Percussionist Musa Mboob.AlY Gaye
was brough to Gambia to celebrate the much anticipated election victory of
Jahumpa against Pierre Njie which Jahumpa lost.

Ya Arret
was an accomplished organizer of political rallies for IM Garba Jahumpa’s
Gambia Muslim Congress Party. She explored all avenues of protest including
public demonstrations and strikes. Her political enterprise proved immensely
successful and later in life she used her enormous influence to support
charitable goodwill and gesture in the field of education, art and health which
she provided to anyone in need . People come from Basse to Banjul in search of
Ya Arret’s goodwill and she would stand up for anyone who is unjustly treated
and your eyes are red. She would wipe your tears, cloth you and feed you,
embrace you until you are fit to go. 


she depended heavily on a group of trusted
advisers led by close friends like Ya Fatou Mbenga, Ya Amie Faal-Fama, Aji Ya
MuNdow Jobe, Marie Samuel Njie, Sosseh Jagne, Aji Mam Peul Janneh, Ya Penda
Bittaye, Ya Ida Jallow and male advisers like Master Sillah, J.C Faye, Dr.
Ndow, Sam Goddard, Horace Monday, Uncle Arthur Johnson (husband of Mary
Arthur), Tamasa Jarra, Alassan Ndure, Pa Dodou Matar Njie, Pa Omar Gaye Nyang,
Pa Sulay Mbaye, Pa Ousman Secka and Alhagi Baboucar Jeng. 


Presiding over one of
the largest organizations ever seen in the Gambia, Ya Arret was at the head of
societies for most of her life. She became synonymous with the period
symbolizing propriety and cultural values and this heightened her mystique. Ya
Arret sought to gain an influence in Gambian politics whilst remaining aloof
from tribal party politics.

One of her first moves as Party female
Wing leader was the establishment of a youth club of the party. She was
religions and supervised the mosque at her compound, of which she became the
facilitator as a prayer ground for anyone who needed a place to pray. This
Hagan Street Jaka and Saweh (Compound Mosques) later evolved into many of
today's greater Banjul community Mosques. She was consulted by influential
people of the time.

Educated in Arabic, beautiful and highly
articulate, Ya Arret Mboge influenced the politics of the Gambia Muslim
congress party and of the Gambia at large through her alliances and influence
over her affiliations with the Gambia intelligentsia, a progressive Newspaper
started in the Gambia by intellectual elders like Mr. Pierre Ngossi Single and
John Essie Williamson Kuye and Bani Foster.sr which was established in the
Gambia in 1890 and later taken over by Sam Silver and the Gambia communist
party in the 1920’s and had a branch in the Gold Coast and later became the CPP
, the party that was formed by Kwame Nkumarah. The Convention Peoples' Party
(CPP) was formed in 1949 during the struggle for independence.

Its founding father was Osagyefo Dr.
Kwame Nkrumah Ghana's first president. Kwame started his party with a Gambian
party President Mr. Kofi Crabbe, a Gambian from Primet Street in Banjul, and
with other Ghanians such as Kofi Baku, Akwa Aje, Eric Hayman, John Tettega, J.B
Danquah, John Badema, Krobo Eduseh, Madam Asene Lansana.

Ya Arret together with Garba Jahumpa
were responsible for sendingEighty Four Gambian youths to Ghana for training and indoctrination as
the Pan African youth Pioneers who will campaign through teaching to mobilize
the African youth and youths in the Diaspora to embrace Pan Africanism
i.e:Palanding Drammeh as group
leader, Lamin Janha (lived with Nkurumah till his death), Musa Bittaye,
Junkunda Daffeh, Koro Sallah, Sulayman Ndow, Mrs. Joana Jahumpa, Mrs. Bin Corr,
Samba Gai, Njuga Cham, Denny Cham, Goumbo Touray, Badou Ceesay, Boli Cham,
Badou Jasseh, Laye Sagnia, Bai Janha and many more dynamic African youths to study
in Ghana at the Kwame Nkumarah Leadership school in Accra together with other
African students from Somalia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and the black
world thinkers as well as African minds including George Padmore, Dr.Casely
Hayford, Dr. Henry Clark, John Huggins, Richard Wright, Philip Randall , James
Baldwin, W E B Du bois and many African intellectuals, to teach leadership to
our youth for the unification of Africa. 
These
students were going to be the disciples and architectures of the African renaissance.
This was a continued work of the WASU. The West African Student Movement
(WASU), 7 August 1925, a case of a young African students who managed to
organize themselves in face of the urgency of Africa's future problems.
Students such as Lapido Solanke, Kusimo Soluanda, Olatunde Vinncent, Ekuudayo
Williams, M.A. Sorinola Siffre, B.J. Farreira from Nigeria; J.B. Danquah from
Ghana, Otto Oyekan-During from Sierra Leone, W. Davidson Carrol, Kushida
Roberts from the Gambia wanted from the 1920s to create the United States of
Africa as a prelude to United Africa for all the people. 


It is the Renaissance
and there is no Renaissance without unity. Alioune Diope (1910-1980), of
Senegal, has the exceptional merit of being the first in the Francophone world to
offer the African intelligentsia in both Africa and in the Diaspora a platform
for literary, prose, poetic, critical, scientific, philosophic and religious
production. Followed by Frantz Fanon 1925 – December 6, 1961 was a
Martinique-born French-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and
writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies,
critical theory and Marxism. 


Fanon is known as a radical existential humanist
thinker on the issue of decolonization and the psychopathology of colonization.
Fanon wrote his first book, Black Skin, White Masks, an analysis of the
psychological effects of colonial subjugation on people identified as black.
Fanon is best known for the classic book on decolonization ‘The Wretched of the
Earth’.

Pan Africanist Kwame Nkrumah brought to
the Gambia, the King of Hi-Life Music E.T. Mensah to perform at the K.G 5
Parkand at the Atlantic Hotel in
Banjul singing “Ghana-Guinea-Mali Africa is now a Republic”. Ya Arret was in
charge of the visiting Ghana music band and managed the band well and after
that visit to the Gambia E.T Mensah penned and nipped a Number one Highlife hit
song called “All for you” which made him an international superstar. Late E.T
Mensah is an African music legend from Ghana and played through out West Africa
to popularize Pan Africanism. 


The Gambian Muslim Congress together
with Kwame Nkumarah’s CPP Party collaborated with Abdel Gamal Nasser President
of Egypt. Garba was instrumental for the niece of Nasser, Madam Fathia to marry
to Kwame Nkumarah and they had a son called Gamal Nkurumah. Together they
worked with, Sekou Toure of Guinea and Modibo Keita of Mali for the Union of
Ghana, Guinea and Mali leading to the total unification of the African
continent. I M Garba introduced the Muslim Clergy Bai Nyass and a Senegalese
Mathematician Sulayman Nyang together with I.M. Garba Jahumpa to write
CONSCIENCISM, a book that dealt with the subject of Pan African or Communism
for Africa.

Ya Arret was involved in interminable
political machinations seeking always to increase the power of her favored
politician I.M. Garba Jahumpa. Garba Jahumpa and the Gambia Muslim Congress
invited the Socialist first Prime Minister of Senegal and his entourage to
visit I.M Garba Jahumpa in the Gambia, Prime Minister Momodou Jah, together
with Waljojo Ndiaye. On their return to Senegal Momodou Jah was overthrown by
imperialist forces and Leopald Sedar Senghore was sworn-in as the President of
Senegal.

Ya Arret
had a role in the cold war between the East and West and that was because he
supported President Nkrumah's action in supporting Abdel Gamal Nasser the Prime
Minister of Egypt who blocked the Suez Canal and declared war on Israel, UK and
the West. I M Garba Jahumpa was considered a
socialist and sidelined by Britain not to rule the Gambia forever. The Gambia
Muslim party was broken into pieces and that's how former President Jawara was
picked to rule the Gambia instead of Pierre Njie an out spoken lawyer and first
Chief Minister of the Gambia who was anti establishment and anti British.

Ya Arret was at the forefront of Gambian
politics, Women and children’s rights, workers rights and the citizen rights. As Gambians put to the task of the
Gambia Renaissance, we must be assured, confident and have faith in our
capacity to think and act. If we continue to alienate ourselves emotionally and
intellectually, success will always remain remote from us. 


Gambian politicians in particular will
be more respected if they work for the interest of the Gambian people. The Gambian Renaissance is the awakening
of the giant sleeping in the conscience of every Gambian, for the work to
accomplish, the mission to carry out and the destiny to reach.
Author: Oko Drammeh Media Actions
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