By Lamin Jahateh
Based
on the Constitution of The Gambia, any candidate who does not have evidence of
completing a minimum of senior secondary school education is deemed ineligible
to be president, said a legal expert.
 |
Lawyer Malick H.B. Jallow |
Malick
H.B. Jallow, legal practitioner and senior law lecturer at the University of
The Gambia, said the rationale for minimum education requirement stipulated in
the constitution for president is to ensure that presidential candidates have a
sufficient amount of exposure to formal education that will enable them deal
effectively with the role of president.
The Point newspaper
recently had an exclusive interview with Lawyer Jallow on the legal
interpretation of Section 62 of the Constitution, which outlines the minimum
requirement to be president.
Section
62 (1) states that for any person to be eligible to contest for president in
The Gambia, the person must be a citizen of The Gambia by birth or descent,
attained the minimum age of thirty years but not more than sixty-five years.
The
person must also be ordinarily resident in The Gambia for the five years
immediately preceding the election; completed senior secondary school
education; and be qualified to be elected as a member of the National
Assembly.
“These
provisions are interpreted conjunctively, therefore all the listed requirements
must be fulfilled for one to be qualified as a presidential candidate and
failure to meet any of them renders you ineligible as candidate for the
presidency,” Lawyer Jallow said.
The
nomination for presidential candidates begins tomorrow, Monday, but the educational
qualification of certain presidential candidates remains a subject of public
discourse.
For
example, the discussion on the educational qualification of the leader of the
Gambia Democratic Congress, Mamma Kandeh, continues to gather more steam.
For
now, his highest known educational level is the attainment of Secondary fourth
certificate from Crab Island Secondary School.
Education
experts have explained that Secondary fourth certificate is not equivalent to
completion of senior secondary education.
But
after graduating from Crab Island, Kandeh is said to have attended a six-month
accounting course at the Gambia Technical Training Institute (GTTI), a tertiary
institution that provides technical and vocational post-secondary education.
According
to Lawyer Jallow, Section 62(1d) is quite clear and conclusive; it states that
a person must, as a bare minimum, have completed senior secondary school
education to be eligible for the presidency.