The President arrived in Banjul to a momentous welcome with people lining up at the airport and on the roads singing and waving placards and flags. The delegation was lodged at the Ocean Bay Hotel.

In the evening, the President addressed the executive and members of the APC Gambia branch.

The President and entourage visited Kafuta Agricultural Project, Sulayman Junkung Hospital and President Jammeh’s home village of Kanilai.

At Kafuta, we were driven through part of the vast lands under cultivation with different types of cash crops, especially onions and Irish potatoes, being harvested. We discovered that the Gambia has all the machinery to process these plantations and is actually exporting them to other countries under the management of the M.A. Kharafi Project. Flowers are also cultivated here with a potential for export.

The Sulayman Junkung Hospital, named after President Jammeh’s father, is an ultra-modern medical centre acting as a parent body for providing virtually free services to Gambians. There are facilities to treat HIV/Aids sufferers. There’s also a functional dentistry operated by locally trained dental nurses. Cataract/eye surgeries are performed here with hi-tech visual equipment. There is a media project to help train and inform staff. With the help of technical co-operations with other countries, the staff and technical team include Nigerians, Cubans and Egyptians for service delivery and transfer of technology, boasting of 150 doctors. There is an effective ambulance system, staff quarters within the hospital’s compound, together with a medical school within. There is a fully functional surgical block.

At President Jammeh’s home village of Kanilai, President Koroma joined in the laying of the foundation stone for the erection of a recording studio and FM station to serve West Africa and beyond – a project that has been projected to be completed in nine months.

From there, we proceeded to the crocodile pond, the fish pond, the game park (with cows, zebras, birds, dogs, and camels), the cashew plantation, and Sindola Hotel where presentations of gifts were made to the two Presidents by Sierra Leonean women in the Gambia. Before departing Kanilai, President Jammeh gave three bags of rice (which can be cultivated and harvested within four months) and bags of cashew that could be harvested within a year to President Koroma and the people of Sierra Leone.

A visit to Brikama Power Plant, Gunjur Fisheries Project, AU villas at Brufut, and the Sheraton Hotel Resort.

The Brikama Power Plant, providing a capacity of 50 mega watts electricity for 40% of the population, is being run by Global Electrical Group, owned by Ibrahim Bazzy, a Lebanese of Sierra Leonean origin.

At the Gunjur Fisheries Project, we were shown the work of the Artisanal Fisheries Development Project and the Gunjur Community Fisheries Centre engaged in large-scale modern fishing activities with storage, cooling, packaging facilities and exporting fish to other countries.

The AU villas are well-furnished with furniture, telephone, fax, and computers. Each costing ninety-thousand pounds sterling, the villas are used for rent, mortgage or outright purchase. They are built by a Gambian private businessman, Mohamed Njie, who is embarked on private estate development in many countries in the sub-region.

The Sheraton Hotel Resort can only be described as a tourist novelty. Built with local materials, the interiors of the mass of detached villas are all technologically sophisticated.

Later in the day, the President held a general meeting with the Sierra Leone community at the Independence Stadium. Speaking at the ceremony, President Koroma thanked Sierra Leoneans in the Gambia, together with all Gambians, particularly President Yayah Jammeh, for the wonderful reception accorded him. The President appealed to all Sierra Leoneans to put the divisions of the past and political differences behind to work together in the interest of the development of Sierra Leone. "I am still leader of the APC, but more so President of Sierra Leone," the President declared. "The next time I visit Gambia, I’d like to see the red as I do now, but I would also want to see green and orange. We should now come together as one family to move our country forward." The President outlined his government’s vision to improve the lot of Sierra Leoneans and put Sierra Leone back on the map of progressive nations. "Sierra Leone is at crossroads. It’s not going to be a jolly ride. The celebrations for our victory should be over now, and it’s time for hard work to start. I am again making the pledge to provide the leadership that will take Sierra Leone to the next level. With God’s help, Sierra Leone will get there," he said to a thunderous applause. The President said within the next few months the focus of his priority would move from energy to agriculture and generally turning the economy around. He stressed on the message of attitudinal change: "What we need is not only physical construction, but construction of our minds that will lead to physical construction to make a Sierra Leone that we will all be proud of." The President said we as Sierra Leoneans don’t have a choice, except to work together, irrespective of background, if we want to benefit from our God-given natural resources.

At night, there was a state banquet at the Kairaba Beach Hotel hosted by President Jammeh in honour of President Koroma. Before dinner, the host President had glorious words for Sierra Leone’s history, especially Fourah Bay College, through which many Gambian intellectuals and many more people outside Sierra Leone got their tertiary education. He welcomed President Koroma to his country, urging him to work with the people, "who are your masters". Reciprocating, President Koroma thanked his counterpart for the brotherly reception which he described as "indeed a homecoming", stating that there was the need to learn from the Gambian experience: "We’ve ushered in a new regime determined to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. I am here to borrow a leaf from your experience. We will be going back with a renewed determination to do a lot more… Thank you very much and God bless you." There was a range of cultural dances, including performances by Sierra Leonean groups, one of which was Freetong Players. The high moment of the occasion was the awarding and installation of President Koroma as Grand Commander of the Order of the Republic of the Gambia by President Jammeh.

The President and entourage attended church service at the Trinity Methodist Church in Serekunda. With a mainly Sierra Leonean congregation, the President addressed the service by urging Christians to face the great challenge of building moral foundations for the nations. He urged them to stand firm in prayer for both Gambia and Sierra Leone. The President was given a gift of a Methodist cloth with the inscription, ``In everything, give thanks, `` before he knelt before the pulpit to take the `holy communion`.

Afterwards the President visited and was taken on a conducted tour of the Gambia Ports Authority, with a success story of importing and exporting, followed by a tête-à-tête at State House culminating to the signing of a joint communiqué and draft agreement on bilateral cooperation, ending with a press conference. The communiqué was signed by Gambia`s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Omarr Touray and Sierra Leone`s Minister for Presidential Affairs Alpha Khan.

Departed from Banjul International Airport.

The President is back at work at State House