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@MrAyedee: My thoughts on @MObanikoro’s court cases on citizenship and age

by Aye Dee

As far as I know, Musiliu Obanikoro is a natural born citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and nowhere else. Not Outer Mongolia, not the Kingdom of Norway and definitely not the United States of America.

This is contrary to the claims made by some individuals who are seeking his disqualification from the Lagos governorship race on technicalities based on disproven allegations about his age and citizenship:

Three members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State are seeking the disqualification of erstwhile Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, from the governorship race in the state.

The applicants, Messrs Michael Babatunde Ogun, Suleiman Saheed and Rotimi Adesuyi Odusanmi, filed the suit at an Ikeja High Court on Friday.

Joined as respondents in the suit filed by their counsel, Wahab Shittu, a constitution lawyer and activit, were the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

In the originating summons, the applicants were praying the court to disqualify Obanikoro from the party primaries slated for November 22 to 25.

 Source

Ultimately, it’s obvious that desperate individuals in Lagos who know he is destined to become the next governor of the state are panicking. These people have chosen not to meet him at the party primaries or the general election because they know their candidates are bound to suffer a humiliating defeat in a fair electoral contest with him.

Instead, they have left the high ground of politics which he has chosen to travel, for the low road of subterfuge and are resorting to the same dirty tricks they used in years past.

They have forgotten that prior to entering the race for Governor of Lagos State, Obanikoro served as Minister of State for Defense. It goes without reason that in order to be appointed to such a sensitive and critical position, he had to have been granted the highest level of security clearance obtainable from the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Such clearance can only come after a rigorous security check by relevant security agencies. If Obanikoro was violating the Constitution of the Republic in any way, including allegiance to a foreign power, or had an identity that was not congruent with public records, ie his official age, this would have been discovered and his appointment would never have happened.

Unfortunately for the petitioners and their (not so) secret Godfathers in both APC and PDP, but fortunately for the people of Lagos State, he passed muster as his record was clean and his documents authentic.

Consequently, the issues raised in the lawsuit were settled before the suit was even filed, (not that such nuances matter to desperate people).

Moving forward, my only advice to ‘awon desperados’ is play the game the way it ought to be played: at the ballot box. Surely, there is honor in fighting fairly, even if such a fight leads to a humiliating loss.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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