By: Nyima Sillah
Taking into consideration the circumstances surrounding citizenship in the country despite how it was stated in the constitution and the rejected draft constitution, Gambians have continued the debate as many shared their opinions regarding the issue on who can have access to the country’s documents.
Some said anyone born in the country should be given a right to the national documents while some against such idea, though some others said ones parents must be Gambians or go through naturalization process.
According to Hamat Jallow anyone born in a country should be given a right to that nation’s documents irrespective of where his or her parents were born or come from.
“This should be the law in all the countries because it is legal. Parent’s nationality doesn’t matter, what matters are where the person is born. My wife is from Guinea but when our son went to apply for an ID card, they denied him saying that he is not a citizen,” he said.
Amadou Gorr called on government to recover the provisions on rights to citizenship as many people are illegally denied the national identity cards and they are bona fide Gambians.
He added that issue of Citizenship might cause a lot of confusion and difficulties in this country in the upcoming election as some people would want to vote but might not have legal documents to do so.
Aisha Njie, a non-Gambian lamented that despite her being in the country for 19 years she’s still not accepted or have access to naturalization, despite that she had born all her children in this country and her husband being a Gambian national for that matter.
Ms Njie explained: “I have been in the Gambia since 2002 and all my children are born here, but despite being in the country for 19 years, I never have the chance to vote.”
“This is a concern and government should act on it because it is absolutely not right to continue deny people born or stays longer in the country and even married ones right to citizenship. People have rights to have citizenship when they are born in the country or married a citizen of the country,” she added.