Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s possession of a dual citizenship is not enough to disqualify him as the next president of the country.
Babatunde Raji Fashola, the Minister of Works and Housing disclosed this on Sunday on a Channels Television programme, Politics Today.
Fashola, a former governor of Lagos state, said his predecessor who he also served as Chief of Staff, has not broken the law by holding a dual nationality.
The minister spoke after revelation that Tinubu, who was declared winner of the February 25 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC holds a Guinean Diplomatic passport.
The revelation has made some Nigerians to call for the cancellation of his election as president-elect.
The two presidential candidates who lost to Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, are challenging the outcome of the keenly contested election, and Tinubu’s dual citizenship is believed to be one of the issues being raised at the election petition tribunal.
Section 137 (1)(a) of the Nigerian Constitution says a person will not be qualified to be president if “he has voluntarily acquired the citizenship of a country other than Nigeria.”
Fashola said he did not believe that this is enough to declare Tinubu’s election void.
According to the minister ” I know he carries a Nigerian passport. I don’t know about dual citizenship. I know he resided abroad when he went into exile.
“I don’t know if they gave him American citizenship. What does that have to do with the results of the election? The last time I checked, I think the Nigerian constitution allows you to have dual citizenship. Doesn’t it?”
Meanwhile, not a few analysts insist that all petitions regarding the presidential election should be dispensed with by the courts before the May 29 hand over date, to ensure that the right candidate is sworn -in as the country’s next president.
