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

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

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

The leaders of other political parties made their views during the lively discussion on Citizenship that was moderated by Commissioner Gaye Sowe.

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

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

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.

Commissioner Gaye Sowe during his opening statement 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 irrespective of gender. While for naturalisation there’s a 15 years residency requirement and 7 years residency requirement for marriage respectively.