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Babatunde Fashola, the minister of works and housing has shared his perspective on the alleged dual citizenship of the president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Over the weekend, a photo of a Guinean passport with a photograph of Tinubu as the purported holder surfaced on social media.
The passport sparked a conversation about the alleged dual citizenship of the president-elect.
Reacting to the allegation during his live appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics on Sunday, April 16, 2023, Fashola said he doesn’t know if Tinubu holds passports of two countries.
“I know he 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 if they gave him American citizenship there. 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?” the minister said.
Fashola reacts to other allegations against Tinubu
Reacting to other controversies surrounding Tinubu’s age, personality, nationality, educational background, name and past life in the United State, Fashola said the issues do not matter because Nigerians decided to vote for him despite the many allegations leveled against him.
"I think that makes it more interesting and I think the issues have been ventilated sufficiently. You know what, the Nigerian people have decided, don’t issues don’t matter. The only thing I can say to you is that every time it got more difficult, I used to tell people, this was his path to success. There is no easy way, there is no easy day for him. The more difficult it gets, then you can be sure it’s Asiwaju’s".
However, Fashola expressed doubt about the provision of Nigerian constitution on whether a president candidate with dual citizenship is qualified to contest.
The former governor of Lagos, who is also a lawyer by training said he would revisit the constitution for the specifics of its provision on the matter.
“I’ll go and check. It’s ‘place of birth’ o… if you were born to Nigerian parents. I’ll check that, but I doubt that the Nigerian constitution makes you disentitled if you have dual citizenship because the constitution allows you to have dual citizenship,” he said.
What the constitution says
According to Section 137(1)(a) of the Constitution, a person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if -“subject to the provisions of section 28 of this Constitution, 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”.
Section 28(1) of the constitution states that “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”.