Ibrahima Garba-Jahumpa was a Gambian politician. He served as a Minister of Finance, Commerce and Industry, appointed October 1972.
Background
Ibrahima Muhammadu Garba-Jahumpa was born on November 22, 1912, the son of Muhammadu, a Muslim leader, Koranic scholar, leading shipwright and shipowner, with a fleet of cutters plying the River Gambia, who was 71 when Ibrahima was born, dying at the age of 104.
Education
Ibrahima was sent to Cherno Adama’s Koranic School and then went to the Muhammadan School until 1930 when he won a government scholarship to St Augustine’s Secondary, where he excelled academically.
Career
He began his political apprenticeship and trade unionism under Edward Francis Small, the father of Gambian trade unionism, who took him to the World's First International Trade Union Conference in London in 1945. He also attended the famous Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, where he met Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah and other famous African leaders.
He started politics in the municipal council as a nominated member in 1942 and in 1947 was elected for the Half Die Ward, holding the seat almost continuously until 1968. In 1959 he was the first Gambian to become Chairman (now called Mayor) of Bathurst City Council. He was a tutor at the Teachers’ Training College in Georgetown from 1949 to 1950 and headmaster of Bakau School 1950-1951.
In October 1951 as founder and leader of the Gambia Muslim Congress, he was elected to the Legislative Council, re-elected in 1954, he became Minister of Agriculture until he lost his seat in the elections of 1960.
He did not re-enter Parliament until after independence in 1965, being reelected in 1966 for Bathurst South. He sat on the Opposition Benches as a leader and sole representative of the revived Gambia Congress Party. But with Parliament meeting so infrequently. Opposition members feel continued frustration and in March 1968 he carried the whole membership of his Gambia Congress Party into a merger with Dauda Jawara’s People’s Progressive Party. He was soon appointed to the cabinet and Health portfolio in April; Education and Social Welfare were added later.
In the general election of March 1972 he stood again in Bathurst South and by the narrowest majority in the election, became the first Progressive Party candidate to win a seat in the capital. He became Minister of Health and Labour, being switched to Finance, Commerce and Industry in October 1972, in the general reshuffle following S. M. Dibba's resignation as Vice-President.
Personality
Known as “Baa” to his friends, amiable and easy-going, from a family with a fascinating history, dating back to the time his grandfather fled Senegal, after the Napoleonic wars, his early political success was based on his leadership of the Muslims. Suffering the inevitable frustration of an Opposition leader in the Gambia, he joined the government where his urbane, civilised style and experience made him a good minister. He has a curious reputation for being accident-prone, afflicted by trivial frustrations in everyday affairs, but falls back on a Muslim stoicism and an escape into a good political or historical book.