Editor

Please, allow me space in your widely read newspaper to commend the organisers of the forthcoming Roots Homecoming Festival due in a few weeks time.

I think the Department of State for Tourism and the National Arts and Culture, who have been behind the scene for the past months in preparation towards this event, also needs commendation.

I have no doubt in my mind that the idea of the festival been decentralize for the first time in the history of the programme, to include the rural area, is a welcome one in all quaters.  This will not only show case our traditional and cultural values, but it will also provide a unique opportunity to broaden participation across the country,  for our visitors, especially those in the diaspora, to have a moment of caring and sharing with their fellow African brothers and sisters, in memory of the trans-atlantic slave trade.
 
But before I put my pen down, I would want to take this opportunity to thank all those Afrians who were in the fore-front in the fight against the abolition of the slave trade as the liberation of Africa was meant for us to see to it that Africa is free from slavery.

ALhajie Barrow

Fajikunda