A BIG NO!!! The Gambia is not an Islamic state. It is elementary knowledge that a state has to have a constitution and institutions to implement constitutional provisions. The executive is used to giving executive orders without bearing in mind that such orders could go beyond the mark.
All Gambians should ask the President whether the 1997 Constitution which was approved at a referendum is now null and void. Of course, his answer would be in the negative. He should then be asked to produce the Constitution of the Islamic Republic he has declared in Brufut. Of course he would be able to produce such a constitution.
The President should be told that the 1997 which provides him, his cabinet and the national Assembly with a blanket of legitimacy is what is in force and cannot be reduced to thin air by executive declarations on party political platforms.
Section 100 of the 1997 Constitution does not permit any declaration of a one party state or state based on religion. It is very tempting for a Muslim to support such declaration. However, many Muslims would oppose the declaration of a one party state. What all Gambians should bear in mind is that if the president is not told that he has no powers to declare a state based on religion, what would people say when he declares a one party state.
The constitution has given the Gambian people all powers to defend the 1997 constitution and oppose any new constitution which is designed to create another Republic. It states in section (2) “All citizens of The Gambia have the duty at all times and the right to defend this Constitution and, in particular, to resist, to the extent reasonably justifiable in the circumstances, any person or group of person seeking or attempting by any violent or unlawful meansto suspend, overthrow or abrogate this Constitution or any part of it.”
(3) A person who resists the suspension, overthrow or abrogation of
this Constitution as provided in subsection (2), commits no offence.”
Nobody has power to overthrow the constitution through the back door.
