By D. A. Jawo
Rumours are going around that the resignation of the Minister of Basic and Secondary Education Haddy Jatou Sey and the sacking of the Communication and Digital Economy Minister Ousman Bah, are as a result of both of them refusing to relinquish their US citizenship as required by law.
Section 71 of the 1997 Constitution states in sub-section (2) “A person shall not be qualified to be appointed or hold the office of a Secretary of State (Minister) if, he or she is a member of the National Assembly or if he or she holds the citizenship or nationality of any country other than The Gambia.” Therefore, in view of this law, one would wonder how these people got appointed to serve as cabinet ministers when they had not met those requirements of the law. In the case of Minister Bah, for instance, he had been in office for more than two years whilst Minister Sey had served for less than six months. However, any reasonable person should have expected that they would have met all the legal requirements before their appointment.
This is yet not only another indication of this regime’s lack of a proper policy direction, but also an indictment on President Adama Barrow’s advisers, particularly his chief legal adviser, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice. It is hard to imagine that President Barrow would appoint anyone in the cabinet or in any other senior position without consulting with the Attorney General for legal advice. Therefore, in such a case, the blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the Attorney General whose duty it is to advise President on the legality or otherwise of his appointments.
Also, the very fact that ministers had to resign or be sacked for simply refusing to relinquish their citizenship of a foreign country indicates some apparent lack of confidence in the system. Indeed, if President Barrow reserves the power to appoint and/or sack ministers and other appointees at will without being required to give any reasons, is an indication of lack of job security, and some of those holding foreign citizenship could be justified for refusing to give them up when they know that they could be sacked any time at the whims and caprices of the President.
Therefore, the only way this situation could be addressed is when we finally get a new constitution which we expect would give the National Assembly a role in the appointment of cabinet ministers and other senior officials where such appointments would be properly scrutinized before being approved.