Editor,

I am appalled, truly appalled by the story I read today on the net about Tumbul Tamba’s death. I tell you, even when ALL the Gambian online media were attacking me, I took it on the chin. But today I am truly appalled and saddened by the disgraceful story about Tumbul Tamba’s death (I am NOT defending anything he may or may not have done in his job as President Jammeh’s Principal Protection Officer). But I am truly appalled by the way his hospitalization at RVTH and his death is reported. That story is simply false. Period. I visited the man EVERY day while he was in hospital, bringing him and his two wives food and drink.

Knowing that he was dying, the man was serenity personified. His bravery and lack of fear was absolutely total. Not once did he show any fear or pain. But he bravely fought to breath for days – 75% of his lungs were consumed by TB (I was shown the X-Ray by Dr. Njie). On the last day the bleeding stopped because he was on a ventilator. But he was inhaling hard – absolutely constantly from the ventilator because his lungs were virtually eaten up by TB. As I talked to him, he nodded acknowledgement as he inhaled. I kept telling him, “don’t give up – you are a fighter”, but we all knew all hope was lost. I thought the only think to do for him was to take him to Dakar, and argued with Dr. Njie about this. Dr. Njie assured me, in the RVTH car park, that once one had lost 75% of the lungs, there was no hope.

On the final evening, I was again at his bed-side and squeezed his hand and asked him to fight on. He squeezed my hand back, and to this day I remember how strong the man was even then. I left that night and went to bed, only to be woken by a telephone call at 5a.m. in the morning telling me that Tumbul had passed away: after inhaling manually for so long, he got tired and closed his eyes for just five minutes. In that short time, when no air was entering his lungs, he passed away.

I picked up his boys, took them to my house, cleaned them up, bought them brand new suits and shoes to wear for the funeral and kept them with me until the afternoon. Then I took them to the funeral where we found a sobbing General Tamba and a huge gathering of mourners, including Edward Singhatey.

Tumbul died in remarkable dignity and it is a disgraceful a for anyone to say otherwise. For God’s sake, you are speaking falsehood – about a dead man!

First Meeting:

I first met Tumbul Tamba in Kanilai in August 2005. I had taken a group of 50 UK Scouts to The Gambia and they wanted to spend a night in a village. I rang State House and got permission to take them to Kanilai. President Jammeh was going to join us but the President of Mauritania was overthrown and landed in Banjul. President Jammeh stayed in Banjul and asked Tumbul Tamba, Kanilai Commander, to look after the scout group. Tumbul was a gentleman through and through and we became friends. When he became ill, he should have stayed away from work because President Jammeh gave him time off. But Tumbul failed to finish his TB course of treatment because he wanted to go back to work. On Independence Day celebrations 2007, he asked me to bring him a nice red silk tie from UK. I did and he is wearing it in the State occasion photographs of the day, standing behind President Jammeh.

Now with TB, it is curable provided you complete your course of treatment. If you don’t and stopped half-way, the TB comes back more deadly when it appears again. That is simply what happened to my friend Tumbul Tamba.

The rest of the appalling nonsense in that story is not worth commenting on, except to say that his faithful wives, one Mandinka and one Jola, kept his honor completely intact at all times; I was there and I repeat absolutely at all times. And, for the last week of his life, Tumbul was too busy fighting for breathe to utter the nonsense mentioned.

As I say, I was with the man almost to the end, and what I saw was simply a very brave man facing death in a most dignified manner: I will be proud if I was able to face my own death in the dignified manner he faced his own.

 May his soul rest in peace.