President Bola Tinubu has told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that his Guinean citizenship expired in 2020, the same year when his Guinean passport, being brought up by the opposition, expired.
Tinubu’s claim was made through his lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN) while requesting that the tribunal throw out a petition by the Labour Party (LP) seeking his removal from office.
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According to Tinubu’s counsel, the President’s Guinean passport tendered before the court by the LP’s PW27 expired in 2020, adding that the opposition party’s claim on Tinubu’s dual citizenship is aimed at embarrassing the President.
“Lastly, the PW27 tendered Exhibit PBF4 (Guinean passport), which as usual, he claimed to have downloaded from the internet, purportedly representing the data pages of the respondent’s Guinean passport, which ex facie, shows that the passport expired in 2020. It is all a guess work, aimed at embarrassing the respondent,” Olanipekun said.
Tinubu’s claim comes as the LP and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenge his victory in the February 25 presidential election. The petitioners allege that Tinubu is not eligible to be president because he holds dual citizenship in Nigeria and Guinea.
Mr Tinubu is being accused of not disclosing facts of his constitutional qualifications in his Form EC9 submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), contrary to the provisions of the law.
The petitioners insist that Mr Tinubu was constitutionally disabled from contesting for the office of president.