Why We Dismissed Petition Against Tinubu’s Guinean Citizenship, Perjury – Presdential Tribunal - Lejit Reporters
Why We Dismissed Petition Against Tinubu’s Guinean Citizenship, Perjury – Presdential Tribunal - Lejit Reporters
The Court of Appeal said the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) has the right to dismiss the petition of dual citizenship and perjury against President Bola Tinubu.
According to Naija News the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, had petitioned the tribunal that Tinubu was unqualified to contest the presidency because he has dual citizenship.
He claimed that the passport of the president surfaced after he had already said under oath that he had never obtained foreign citizenship while submitting his application to run for president.
But in a post via his official X handle on Sunday, the Court of Appeal said it had uploaded the full judgement of the PEPT on the 2023 presidential election.
According to the judgement, the appellate court said it dismissed the petition against Tinubu because Atiku introduced the matter at a time when the president’s lawyers could no longer respond.
The court held that it was deemed to be an “unfair tactic” that would not be tolerated.
The five-member panel said that the matter of Guinean citizenship was a fact that should have been presented as a separate petition rather than as a response to Tinubu’s defence.
The judges berated the former vice president’s lawyers as being “clever by half” when they introduced the passport that Tinubu obtained from a foreign country.
The petitioners were only being clever by half when they claimed in paragraph 2.1 (b) of their Reply that they were simply giving, as they put it, ‘further details’ of the non-qualification of 2nd respondent by averring to the conviction, fine, certificate forgery and dual citizenship of 2nd Respondent that they raised in their Replies,” the judges said.