Adebayo Oli Koshi, Africa Director International IDEA has dispelled assertions that former Nigeria President, Goodluck Jonathan’s mission to The Gambia is to help the country to write a new constitution. But noted that the former Nigerian number one was in the country to help facilitates the constitutional transition process that remains in deadlock.
The former Nigerian President has visited The Gambia two times (December 2020 and the recent in January2021) engaging various stakeholders including political parties, National Assembly members, Civil Society Organisations and the media. This is in bid to resuscitate the draft constitution that was rejected by parliamentarians in September 2020.
“Former President Jonathan never lost the sight of his mission in The Gambia. His mission is not to write a new constitution, but help facilitate the constitutional transition process in The Gambia,” Professor Adebayo affirmed.
According to him, the coming of the erstwhile leader of Nigeria is through courtesy of International IDEA meant to revive the stooge draft constitution, that the coming of a new constitution is very necessary for the country’s transition from dictatorship to a democratic state.
“The Political Party Leaders who had engagement with former President Jonathan have nothing but appreciation for agreeing to come to The Gambia and help this constitutional transition process,” Professor Adebayo disclosed.
The Africa Director for International IDEA stated that President Jonathan has had fruitful engagements with at least fourteen political parties in the country, arguing that such engagements were held in the open accordingly for politicians to agree and disagree on matters arising from the draft constitution.
According to him, the purpose of bringing stakeholders together is to work out their differences in order to keep them on track on their commitment to the constitutional transition, because ironing out the differences will help in arriving at agreement that will see the process continue.
At least, he said, twenty-two contiguous issues have been identified, while assuring that these issues are hope to be addressed before end of this month to allow the constitutional transition process to continue.
Key among the contiguous issues highlighted by Professor Adebayo are the retro activeness of the Two Term Limit of the President, Citizenship, Residency to contest elections, Age Limit, Recall Clause of National Assembly Members among others. “Our whole purpose has been to the supportive and facilitative but not to come and write a constitution for The Gambia. We are not interested in that, we have no desire to do that and we will never accept to write a new constitution for The Gambia,” Africa Director for International IDEA said..
The International IDEA anchorman said his institution is only here to share experiences and knowledge, adding that International IDEA coming is based on invitation from the government and had no business to determine what should happen in The Gambia or not.
He summed that the situation on the ground are not matters of technical questions but rather political questions, noting that some National Assembly Members only rejected the Bill because they thought it was targeting their interest.
