Ousainous Darboe Party, leader of the United Democratic Party (UDP) has said the current pathway to citizenship acquisition provided in the 1997 Constitution ‘is too long’.

Mr. Darboe made this statement on Saturday at the Constitutional Review Commission’s consultation forum with political parties on the Gambia’s new draft constitution.

He called for a change to the current laws on citizenship acquisition for non-Gambians. He recommended 7 years for naturalisation and 3 years for marriage through citizenship acquisition as part of the new requirements.

Mai Ahmad Fatty, leader of Gambia Moral Congress (GMC) for his part supports automatic citizenship to be granted to any one born in the Gambia irrespective of where their parents hailed from. 

Mr. Fatty said that statelessness should be discouraged and the rights to citizenship of children born in the Gambia with foreign parents respected.  

Suwaibu Touray of PDOIS said that any child born in the Gambia should be accorded automatic citizenship irrespective of where their parents hailed from.

The lively discussion on Citizenship was moderated by Commissioner Gaye Sowe. He gave an overview on the current laws regarding citizenship. He said according to the 1997 Constitution Gambian citizenship is acquired by birth, descent, registration or naturalisation.

For birth or descent one of the parents has to be a Gambian. While for naturalisation there’s a 15 years residency requirement and 7 years residency requirement for marriage respectively.