By Yunus S Saliu
The Minister of Tourism and Culture, Hamat NK Bah has called for the restoration of two important sites – Tambasangsang Fort in Tumana and Kisirikunda Old Settlement in Kantora both sites located in Upper River Region (URR).
The two places which has been abandoning for a very long time were among the sites visited by the Minister accompanied by members of his entourage on the ongoing tourism facilities tour across the country on Friday.
Commenting on the two places, the Minister expressed that some tourists are interested in seeing such places if they are restore. With the Gambia Tourism Board working with the National Centre for Arts and Culture they “can use it as part of their marketing products.”
He disclosed that “Krisikunda Old Settlement and Tambasangsang Fort also linked with our past great men who had fought and worked for independence in this country, they suffered immensely for The Gambia in the like of John Jaw, Hassan Musa among other. They were very modesty and never live for money but only work for national development.”
Giving history of the two sites, Hassoum Ceesay Director General of National Center for Arts and Culture described Tambasangsang Fort built in Tumana as a historic site in the Upper River Region, and it is an old trading station which is like the hub for the groundnut trade. “The area is a riverside settlement so when the river transportation declined, the river trading station also declined and with the advent of road transport in the 60s. But the Fort used to be another hub for the groundnut trade built during the era of groundnut boom and it was over 100 years old.”
Meanwhile, the Kirisikunda Old Settlement built in Kantora was an experimental site of the Anglican Church to establish a Christian community in the Upper River Region as the Christians worked in Fulladu. The Anglican Church also wanted to see if they can use the place as base to educate and gain more people to convert to Christianity “so Krisikunda was established as a self-contained community in 1942 and made available school, farm, animal husbandry, and poultry among other things.”
DG Hassoum explained further that when the Anglican Church realized that they were unable to convince the Fulani to convert and also not bringing their children to study in the school, except children from Bathurst (Banjul) whose parents thought their children were stubborn, they closed down the place in 1948: “Due to the fact that when the experiment trail failed, the Anglican Church in England refused to continue the subvention while colonial government also refused to assist them.
“Later,” he disclosed, “the school was brought back in 1950s and so many of our pioneer teachers taught here in the like of Rev JC Faye, Hassan Musa Camara, John Jaw and some students of Krisikunda became very influential example are Professor Njega Senghore, Alhaji MC Cham but the school had trained a lot of people in Banjul.”