Over the weekend, pictures of Bola Tinubu’s alleged Guinean diplomatic passport surfaced on social media.
The President-elect’s camp has been unusually quiet on the dust raised by the subject.
On Sunday night, Seun Okinbaloye of ChannelsTV asked ex-Lagos Governor and Minister of Works/Housing, Babatunde Fashola, if Tinubu is a dual citizen or if he holds another passport.
After repeatedly evading the question, Fashola said: “I know Tinubu carries a Nigerian passport, I don’t know about dual citizenship. I know he resided abroad when he went on exile, I don’t know whether they gave him American citizenship. What does that have to do with the results of the election?
“The last time I checked, I think Nigeria’s constitution allows you to have dual citizenship. I doubt that the Nigerian constitution makes it disentitled if you have dual citizenship, because the constitution allows you to have dual citizenship,” he restated.
What does the Nigerian Constitution say on the subject?
The law allows dual nationality for most persons, but does not allow persons who have been naturalised by another country to naturalise as Nigerian.
Chapter 3, Section 28 of the Nigerian Constitution states as follows:
(1) Subject to other provisions of this section, a person shall forfeit forthwith his Nigerian citizenship if, not being a citizen of Nigeria by birth, he acquires or retains the citizenship or nationality of a country, other than Nigeria, of which he is not a citizen by birth.
(2) Any registration of a person as a citizen of Nigeria or the grant of a certificate of naturalisation to a person who is a citizen of a country other than Nigeria at the time of such registration or grant shall, if he is not a citizen by birth of that other country, be conditional upon effective renunciation of the citizenship or nationality of that other country within a period of not more than five months from the date of such registration or grant.
While the above section gives Tinubu a pass, is he allowed to carry two passports as leader of his nation?
Section 137 (1)(a) of the Nigerian Constitution states that a person shall not be qualified to be President if “he has voluntarily acquired the citizenship of a country other than Nigeria, or except in such cases as may be prescribed by the National Assembly, he has made a declaration of allegiance to such other country.”
However, courts have repeatedly interpreted the above section of the Constitution as inapplicable to a Nigerian-born or a citizen born to either a Nigerian parent or both parents.
In other words, if Tinubu was legally born Nigerian, there are no issues here.
Bukola Saraki served as a two-term Governor of north central Kwara State and Senate President of Nigeria, even though he holds a British passport.
So, what gives?
The bone of contention here could be what is called perjury and whether Tinubu is guilty of perjury.
Perjury basically means lying under oath.
There could be a case against Tinubu if he lied under oath in the forms he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the area of dual citizenship.
There are allegations that in his form EC-9 application for the Presidency, Tinubu told INEC that he never obtained the citizenship of another country.
Tinubu reportedly ticked “NO” in response to “Have you voluntarily acquired citizenship of any other country?” as posed by INEC in the form.
Peoples Gazette submits that Tinubu “appended his signature on the form, swearing that the information given on the form was “correct, true and to the best of my knowledge.”
“While it may not be an issue that Mr Tinubu, who was born in Nigeria, carries dual nationality, he is expected to fight to extricate himself of perjury charges that would likely be brought against him.”