“I will not accept any monarchy practice in the country and I will go to any level of court to condemn it.”
According to the Paramount Chief, “the reason why I said Yoruba people should not practice monarchy in this country is because our constitution has no provision outlined for monarchy to be practiced here.”
Secondly, he added, the man who is claiming to be monarch is not a Gambian but someone who came to the country to hustle and was “opportune to be employed by the department of education as teacher and whilst he was working there, he later ventured into business and from that, he started involving himself onto monarchy affairs.”
“I have made inquiries about him to some kings in Nigerian and I was made to understand that he is not from a monarch system so what he cannot claim in his motherland, he cannot claim in a foreign land,” the Kombo North chief told The Point. ”
“The government should not accept it. If they want to do their traditional dancing and cultural activities, they can do that. Nobody will stop them but they cannot practice something that is not recognised by our laws,” he stressed.
However, Chief Bojang pointed out that if Moshood Abolade wants to be a king, he should go back to Nigeria and be a king there but not here. You can come here as a visitor with your portfolio but you cannot exercise those royal powers here,” he argued.
He said: “I don’t have anything against the Nigerian community but I am worried that if such activities are unchecked, there will be dire consequences. What is not in our constitution, no foreigner should bring that to us.”
According to him, when Europeans came to the Gambia, there were monarchies in the country but when they conquered the country, they abandoned all monarchies and established their own monarchies that were answerable to their monarchy in England.
Furthermore, he explained that after the British abolished monarchy in the Gambia, they brought chieftaincy to replace the monarchy and among the chieftaincy, they picked the head chief who today is known as the Paramount Chief.
He further revealed that in 1855, Mansa Toumani Bojang Tamba, who was king of Kombo, sold Kombo Saint Mary to the British for 125,000 pounds. “Mansa Toumani was initially not convinced by money because at first they offered him money, arms and ammunitions, alcohol, and tobacco but he turned them down, but later they were able to attract his attention when they brought a mirror and placed it before him.”
