A Guinean International passport with the name of Tinubu Bola Ahmed has sparked new controversies about Nigeria’s president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Alleged Guinean International passport of Nigeria’s president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu

The passport, with Guinea as the nationality of the owner surfaced on social media hours ago and has elicited mixed reactions, with Nigerians calling on lawyers to sue the president-elect for perjury.

Investigative journalist, David Hundeyin, who released the document, described it as a diplomatic passport.

The bio-data page of the passport posted by Hundeyin, showed an image of Tinubu from Guinea Conakry, even as he described it as a diplomatic category travel document.

Reacting to Hundeyin’s revelation, Ude, a US-based journalist alleged that “Ousmane Yara, a close confidant of former President Alpha Conde, facilitated the issuance of the Guinean passport to Tinubu.

Furthermore, Ude said “Yara who also supplies marabouts to President Mohammadu Buhari, also does the same for Tinubu. Yara is politically connected in Guinea.”

“An aide to former President Alpha Conde of Guinea has just confirmed to me that Bola Tinubu was issued a Guinean Passport but that he was not sure if it was a Guinean Diplomatic Passport or a regular passport. He confirmed that he took Tinubu to Conde and they became friends!”

The Nigerian Constitution, Chapter 6, Part 1, Section 137 states, “A person shall not be qualified for election to the office of the president if -(a) 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.”

Also, the electoral act states that a Nigerian vying for the office of President cannot hold dual citizenship.

However, there have been diverse interpretations of the electoral act by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with many insisting that the dual citizen law only applies to people who become citizens via registration and nationalization, with an exception to citizenship by birth.