Ondo: How An Election Petition Tribunal Got It Wrong On Dual Citizenship By Aloy Ejimakor

On July 31, 2019, an Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Akure
nullified the election of Ikengboju Gboluga, PDP House of
Representatives member for Okitipupa/Irele federal constituency for
having acquired the citizenship of United Kingdom.

With all due respects to the learned Tribunal, the judgment is
wrong for the following reasons:

The core constitutional provisions on dual citizenship as
impacts on eligibility to run for House of Representatives are
found at Sections 28(1) and 66(1)(a) of the Constitution. No doubt,
dual nationality can trump eligibility but there are some narrow
and specific exceptions.

Section 66 (1)(a) provides that: “No person shall be qualified
for election to the Senate or House of Representatives 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, has made a declaration of allegiance to such
country”. The Tribunal’s judgment was based on portions of this
Section.

Section 28 (1) provides that: “Subject to the 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”. The
Tribunal was also persuaded by this Section.

The Tribunal got it wrong because its analysis was primarily
anchored on an amazing misreading of Section 66 or a faulty
interpretation that omitted the operative phrase: “subject to
provisions of section 28 of this Constitution”. The Tribunal also
ignored a critical sentence in Section 28 that bears a
narrowly-tailored exception created for “citizens of Nigeria by
birth”, of which Ikengboju Gboluga is undoubtedly one.

To be clear, the general constitutional bar found in Section 28
is not applicable to Ikengboju Gboluga simply because he is, first
and foremost, a citizen of Nigeria by birth. The fell consequences
of dual citizenship are specifically intended to operate against
those Nigerians who acquired foreign citizenship without first
being citizens of Nigeria by birth or lineage, such as citizens of
Nigeria by naturalization or registration.

Taken further, even if Ikengboju Gboluga is also a citizen of
the United Kingdom by birth (which he is not), he is still
eligible, provided he is also a citizen of Nigeria by the other
means saved by the Constitution, such as citizenship by derivation,
lineage or aboriginality through his parents being citizens of
Nigeria by birth (native to Ondo State); or by being borne of
Yoruba stock (a tribe aboriginal or indigenous to Nigeria).

By the same interpretation, even Gboluga’s children and their
ilk – borne in the Diaspora of Nigerian parents – are all eligible
to run for House of Representatives on the tenor of a community
interpretation of the exceptions enacted at Sections 28 and 66.

Therefore, the plain meaning of all the pertinent Sections of
the Constitution read together demonstrates that Section 28 is
paramount and controlling and unambiguously so, as can be gleaned
from the limiting language rendering the broad sentence of Section
66 subject to the saving sentence of Section 28.

However, the only scenarios where a Nigerian citizen shall be
barred would be of the few cases where the Nigerian citizenship was
acquired by means other than by birth or lineage, which is no where
near-applicable to Ikengboju Gboluga.

Aloy Ejimakor is a legal practitioner of Adulbert Legal
Services, Abuja