Profile of the late Deyda Hydara: The Prince of the Pen

The name Deyda in Hassaniya Arabic means someone of great stature. It is not known why Deyda’s father gave him such a meaningful name, but it could be he sensed that his son had the makings of a distinguished character.

If so, then his father’s intuition was spot on, because early on in life Deyda showed he was cut out for a big destiny. Unlike his other three siblings who stuck to the traditional Quranic school (Dara), he had a foot in both camps - the Arabic and Western educational systems. Coming from the ultra-conservative Hydara clan that claims its ancestry from the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW), his hybrid education at the time must have caused quite a stir.

The Hydaras are renowned in the Sahelian region for their exceptional grasp of Quranic Science, so much so that all Hydara males are schooled in the art from a very tender age, and are required to uphold the clan’s heritage without adulteration and apology. But he turned out to be one of the few who dared in the thick of the Hydara conservatism to break with tradition to see how the other half lives.

Though Baba Hydara had qualms about his son’s incursion into the unfamiliar terrain of Western civilization, he laughed it off as a fad his son would soon outgrow, but he was mistaken - Deyda stayed the course, taking to his studies like a duck to water. But such drive is about par for the course for someone born under the zodiac sign of Gemini who are often typified by their self-will, sharp wit, astuteness, and curiosity.

Deyda Hydara was born on 9 June 1946 at Dobson Street in Banjul. His father, Baba Hydara, was a Mauritanian immigrant of Moor extraction who ran a grocery shop at 8 Hagan Street, where Deyda grew up.

On his maternal side, he descended from the Faal clan of Kaur, where Halima, Deyda’s mother, was born. When his father’s business slackened, he returned to Nouakchott, Mauritania, leaving the teenage Deyda and his younger ones - Lala, Mamana and Dawda - with their mother who later remarried one Papa Bila at Barra, where she lived until her death in 1992; two years after Deyda’s father had passed away in Nouakchott.

Like most teenage boys, Deyda took to street football with gusto. On the pitch, he would pace down the right flank, waltzing through seemingly impregnable defences to pull out passes that were usually too tricky for goalkeepers to parry, much less save; but he gave up his football mania after his secondary school teacher told him it was a dead-end career unsuitable for a hot brain like him.

His quitting football is like kicking off a ladder after one has used it to climb to the top. It was through football that he forged a friendship that was to change his life forever.

He hit it off with Joseph Gilikou during one of their countless football games, and both of them became inseparable childhood chums, though it was Deyda who frequented more Joseph’s family home at No. 10 Leman Street (now Ecowas Avenue), bantering and occasionally helping out with some domestic chores.

His get-up-and-go so impressed Joseph’s aunt, Tata Aubi Caroline Keita (nee Goddard), that she enrolled him at the Alliance Francaise at Picton Street in Banjul, popularly known then as the “Foyer”.

Deyda excelled at the final examination and was sent to Lycee Gaston Berger in Kaolack, Senegal, where he lost himself in French literature. Shortly before taking his baccalaureate, he fell in love with the writings of Albert Camus, Rebalais, and Jean-Paul Satre whose existentialist philosophy originated by the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegard, caught his fascination, which in turn led him to study in-depth the works of Frank Fanon and Che Guevara.

He kept up his passion for literature right up to Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal. He discontinued his university education after two years, due to lack of funds.

He took this setback in his stride and pressed on with life, eager to get a job and contribute something to the family’s upkeep. At about this time, he was already wide awake to his theatrical flair, as he had already strutted his stuff in a number of school dramas and musical concerts.

He made up his mind then to rely on his own innate ability - his voice - and faith in God to pull him through the unknown.

He got a job as a disc jockey at Radio Syd, anchoring three entertainment programmes - Morning Show, Rencontre and Disque Agogo.

About this time, he met and married Maria Dacosta with whom he had four children - one girl and three boys.

Alongside his basic responsibilities at Radio Syd, he worked first as a translator and then as a correspondent for the Agence France Presse (AFP).

He also joined The Senegambia Sun as a special correspondent and was to join Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) in latter years as a correspondent.

He left Radio Syd to set up Excaf Printing, which metamorphosed into The Point newspaper.

He took over the editorial seat of the paper, when Baboucarr resigned as editor-in-chief of the paper.

He was for a long time the treasurer of the West Africa Journalists Association (WAJA). The other organisations he belonged to included the Association Des Journalistes Francophones (AJF), the Faateleku Cultural Group, the Premier Lions Club and Worldview The Gambia.

Throughout his career as a journalist, he was obsessed with press freedom, good governance and economic development.