She was virtually unknown to many until recently when she was accused of using threatening words against former Daily Observer journalist Omar Bah who questioned the government’s dicey decision to employ her as First Secretary of the Gambian Mission at the UN.

Isatou Badjie bagged the coveted job shortly after President Barrow was sworn-in as The Gambia’s new leader. Her critics, most of them Gambians in the Diaspora, argued that she shouldn’t be at the UN because of her family’s attachment with the former regime of President Yahya Jammeh.

However, contrary to what you might have heard or hear anywhere, Isatou is a star, an eagle who is educated and can perform anywhere on the global stage. 

‘The heights great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night'. Henry Longfellow certainly didn’t have Isatou in mind when he wrote these sagacious words ages ago.

What the critics are not telling you is that Isatou is really hardworking and merits the job based on her qualifications and experience from whichever angle you look at it.

She is one of the brightest young women in the Gambian civil service. After bagging her Bachelor’s Degree from all girls Spellman College in Atlanta, USA, she went on to bag a   Master’s Degree (Hons) in Politics and International Studies from the renowned School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and also volunteered for the Gambian UN Mission in Washington.

Unlike many young Gambians who study in Europe and America and swear never to go back home to serve their country for a chicken change salary, she sacrificed and returned home to serve the country at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where she was earning a monthly salary of less than D4,000.

Unbeknown to Isatou her sacrifice for the country will see her rise through the ranks at the Ministry to a higher destiny as First Secretary at the Gambian mission at the UN.

People close to her speaking to this medium described her as a truly competent professional with admirable qualities.