Sir Dawda Jawara, 1966 (The Gambia)
Sir Dawda Jawara. Photo credit: Gambia Talents Promotion
Dawda Kairaba Jawara was the first prime minister of the Gambia between 1962 and 1970 and later president, when the small west African country became an independent republic in 1970. He was president until he was ousted from power by a palace coup in 1994.
Jawara is a trained veterinary surgeon who was variously educated in the Gambia, Ghana, and the U.K. He successfully led the Gambia for more than 3 decades and is mostly remembered for running a government that shunned the use of coercive techniques as a tactic of political survival.
He is widely regarded as a skilled leader and expert manager of human and material resources and made a knight of the Grand Cross of Saint Michael and Saint George by her majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1966.
