The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has come up with a fresh argument about President Muhammadu Buhari’s nationality, saying that though Buhari was born in Nigeria, his parents and grand-parents were not Nigerians.
Emphasizing his claim and quoting the 1999 Constitution, he said somebody born in Nigeria can only be a Nigerian if any of his parents, grand-parents was born in Nigeria.
Kanu, in his broadcast from the United Kingdom at the weekend, said that neither “dead” Muhammadu Buhari, nor “his replacement” Jibril al Sudani, is qualified to contest for Nigeria’s presidential election.
The IPOB leader said that Buhari’s father, Hardo Adamu, was a nomadic Fulani trader, a duck seller, from Niger Republic and later became a bodyguard in the Emir of Daura’s palace, which made him to settle in Daura, Katsina State, adding that he (Hardo) was borne in Niger Republic, not Nigeria.
Kanu said that the All Progressives Congress, APC, has opened the door by challenging Atiku Abubakar’s citizenship by birth, it now lies within the rights of every right-thinking person to also question Buhari’s citizenship by birth, even litigate it in court.
“Section 25 (1) of the badly worded, badly written 1999 Nigerian Constitution states that being born on Nigerian soil is not enough to qualify you as a Nigerian citizen by BIRTH, unless your father, mother, grandfather or grandmother is also born in Nigeria:
“According to the highest (Supreme) law in Nigeria which is the constitution, ‘The following persons are citizens of Nigeria by BIRTH-namely:
“(a) every person born in Nigeria BEFORE the date of independence, EITHER of whose parents or ANY of whose grandparents belongs or belonged to a community INDIGENOUS to Nigeria;
“Provided that a person shall NOT become a citizen of Nigeria by virtue of this section if NEITHER of his parents nor any of his grandparents was BORN in Nigeria.
