Twitter has banned investigative journalist David Hundeyin for revealing Bola Tinubu’s Guinean citizenship.
Hundeyi, who adopted Peter Obi as his candidate for the presidential election, has been criticizing the President-elect over his indictment by the U.S. Court in a drug-related case.
Last Saturday night, Mr. Hundeyin caused a stir among Nigerian internet users when he shared images of a Guinean diplomatic passport on Twitter. The passport bore the name “Bola Ahmed Tinubu” and featured a photograph of him.
After Mr. Hundeyin shared images of a Guinean diplomatic passport bearing the name of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his photo on Twitter, his supporters were outraged and flooded the post with privacy complaints. This caused Twitter’s automated system to flag the post for deletion and lock Mr. Hundeyin out of his account for violating the platform’s policy around personal identifying information.
Ironically, supporters of the president-elect inadvertently confirmed that the passport belonged to Mr. Tinubu by reporting the tweet as revealing his personal information. Despite this, Mr. Hundeyin maintained that the document he posted was of public interest, given that Mr. Tinubu is a public figure and president-elect of Africa’s largest economy.
Mr. Hundeyin has appealed the suspension with Twitter, arguing that Mr. Tinubu’s Guinean citizenship is a matter of national and public interest. However, it is unclear when or if the suspension will be lifted.
According to a tweet by the digital publication owned by David Hundeyin, the founder of West Africa Weekly, his Twitter account was temporarily locked after he posted evidence of undisclosed dual citizenship and a perjurious INEC EC9 declaration by @officialABAT. Mr. Hundeyin’s post was reportedly reported for “posting private information” in a malicious manner.
The release of the Guinean diplomatic passport bearing the name of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his photograph has sparked new concerns regarding his eligibility to become president. Some have raised questions regarding Section 137 of the Nigerian Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has voluntarily acquired citizenship of another country from becoming president of Nigeria.
There are also concerns about a perjury accusation against Mr. Tinubu, particularly whether there will be consequences for making a false declaration under oath on the EC-9 form where he allegedly lied about his second acquired Guinean citizenship.