GAM WRIT ERS

Fate of an African President

Published in 1996 with Fulladu Publishers Company, Nsukka, Nigeria, this is a collection of 39 poems all written by Fodeh Baldeh. The poems are reflections on the bad experiences of the author after the 1981 foiled coup attempt of which he was wrongly imprisoned. Narrated by the author, at the time he was a lecturer at the Gambia College and the coup plotters, under the severe attack from the Senegalese military following the call for help from the then President Jawara, needed to broadcast a message in French. Fodeh was then chosen for his bilingual skills and having no choice but to accept, he translated a short message in French calling to the neighbouring francophone countries to save The Gambia from the Senegalese ‘invasion’. After the coup, he was imprisoned for a year during which he wrote these poems. This explains why these poems were published in Nigeria and could only be available in The Gambia after 1994.

The basic themes of the pomes centre on the injustice of his detention, resentment, a critical judgment towards the regime of the time, prison life and the humiliation afflicted due to the poor conditions of his detention, reproach towards the Senegalese intervention and remembering his close family members who had no right to visit him among others.

An extract of one of his poems explains why the creation of this collection: ‘In poetry I’m able/To pour out my feelings/Without fear or favour and feel with words/The way into the tunnel.’