The leader of the Gambia Moral Congress (GMC), Mai Ahmad Fatty supports birthright citizenship for children born in the country to non-Gambian parents.
This was disclosed by the Constitutional Review Commission on their Facebook page: “Hon. Mai Ahmad Fatty supports automatic citizenship to be granted to anyone born in The Gambia irrespective of where one’s parents hailed from.”
According to them, the politician argued that statelessness should be discouraged.
Reacting to the post, which garnered more than 200 likes, one Ebou Wally wrote: “Great thoughts always come from great minds. Well spoken, Mr Honourable Fatty.”
Another Facebook user, Sheriff Bah commented: “I totally agree with Hon. Mai Fatty. Well done! That’s all we need in this new Gambia, no segregation, no discrimination.”
However, famous online political commentator, Suntu Daffeh disagreed with the GMC leader saying: “All children born to non-Gambian parents in The Gambia should follow a pathway to citizenship if they want to become citizens, just like how Gambians do it in the West with the exception of only two countries, namely Canada and the US.”
He added: “Gambian children don’t enjoy automatic birthright citizenship in any of the West African countries serving as sources of migration into The Gambia. Thus, it will be grossly unfair to our citizens and children to allow this to be law in our country because there is no reciprocity, not to talk about the adverse implication.”
One Ballo Saidykhan also argued that automatic birthright citizenship shouldn’t be included in the country’s new constitution.
According to the 1997 Constitution, Gambian citizenship can be acquired by birth, descent, registration or naturalisation. But for birth or descent, one of the parents has to be a Gambian.