Background
Dauda Kairaba Jawara was born on May 11, 1924, at Barajally on MacCarthy Island about 150 miles from Bathurst, one of six children of a Muslim Mandingo trader.
Dauda Kairaba Jawara was born on May 11, 1924, at Barajally on MacCarthy Island about 150 miles from Bathurst, one of six children of a Muslim Mandingo trader.
He was sent to Bathurst to stay with a Wollof trader, a friend of the family, while he was educated at the Methodist Boys’ Grammar School.
He left school in 1945 and worked as a trainee nurse in the Government Medical Department, before going to Achimota College in Ghana to study science for one year. From there he won a scholarship to Glasgow University in 1948, where he was president of the African Students Union, qualifying as a veterinary surgeon in 1953.
He returned to the Gambia in January 1954 and became a veterinary officer at Kombo St Mary between 1954 and 1960.
Early in 1959 he joined the Protectorate People’s Party, a grouping of up-country peoples living in Bathurst. He changed the party name to the People’s Progressive Party and became its leader. In May 1960 he contested the elections, won his seat and became Minister for Education. The colonial authorities decided to draw up a new constitution and, in the interim period before the elections were held, chose Pierre Sarr N’Jie, the United Party leader, as Chief Minister. Sir Dauda resigned his ministry in protest.
But in the 1962 elections, despite a dispute over the validity of certain election registers, he managed to win a slender majority and when self-government was introduced on October 4, 1963, he became the Gambia’s first Prime Minister and led his country to full independence on February 18, 1965.
By November he went back to the country to decide whether it should become a republic, but just failed to obtain the necessary two thirds majority. He held further elections, won a landslide victory and went back to the people on the republican issue in April 1967. This time he organised the party better and won the required majority. The victory in the referendum had been helped by the afflictions of the opposition. with P. S. N'Jie relinquishing the party leadership to his brother, who later died, while several other opposition members crossed the carpet.
Sir Dauda became an executive president. His election in future is tied to the election of the House of Representatives, with the President elected by the members. He is answerable to Parliament and the courts and can be removed for misconduct.
Elections were duly held on March 28, 1972, and Sir Dauda was returned as President after his PPP had won 28 out of the 32 elected scats, getting about 63% of the total votes cast.
His main preoccupations since he came to power have been Gambia's economic development and relations with Senegal where he has remained on friendly terms with President Senghor’s government, but the opposition has often expressed itself forcefully against any Senegambian union. He has made some progress over the years on a mutual defence agreement and on shared diplomatic representation, but he has always adopted a cautious and pragmatic approach. He knows that many Gambians depend for their livelihood on the smuggling of consumer goods into Senegal and smuggling Senegal groundnuts in the reverse direction.
With an unusual background as a veterinarian, he adapted himself fast to the realities of politics, steering his country through self-government and independence to a republic.
A slim, elegant man, with keen eyes behind his dark glasses, has made himself the cautious, pragmatic and democratic ruler of his tiny territory.
In 1955 he adopted the Christian faith, took the name of David and married Augusta Mahoney, daughter of Sir John Mahoney, Speaker of the House of Assembly. She helped him at the start of his political career, as he became interested in spreading politics from the capital to the neglected countryside, where his own Mandingo People mostly lived.