African descendants in The Gambia have urged government to grant them citizenship – as the group claimed non-inclusion in the draft constitution which has been stunningly rejected by National Assembly members.

Speaking at a news conference held at Hypo Link village in Kololi, Juliet Ryan, the group’s secretary said: “we are African and have come back home to settle, we want the government of the Gambia to hear our cry and resurrect section 188, because many of us feel that we’ve been discriminated against.”

Juliet said that they have the right to return back home, that their ancestors were not subjected to any citizenship law or migration laws, “they were unlawfully kidnaped into chattel slavery”, adding “we proposed an automatic citizenship process that will prevent African descendants from feeling like an outcasts and prevent the discrimination that we face as a result of the current constitution.”

Ms Ryan said: “Automatic citizenships would attract inward investment and foster harmonious relationship. We will like to be adopted in a family and a village and also have a development fund; therefore, will Gambia make history by being the first nation to have automatic citizenship for African Descendants of the enslaved?” she said.

Another member of the group, Mathew Hypolite said council for African Descendants is an organization that had to happened, adding “we as people coming over to the Gambia to settle, we have contributed quite a lot and we found ourselves particularly very little where our contribution almost amounts to nothing in the eyes of the people who are in power, this came when we start to look at the constitution which labelled us as aliens.”

He added: “It has no preference to who we are and where in places like Ghana the people are welcomed back home with open hand and giving them automatic citizenship and here we are fighting for citizenship.”

Reporting by Adama Makasuba