Amid a spiralling controversy over released court documents allegedly indicting the All Progressives Congress Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, over the forfeiture of assets to the United States government over his involvement in drug trafficking, he got an endorsement from President Muhammadu Buhari who says he will win next year’s election.
Said Buhari in London after a meeting with King Charles III: “What are the chances of my party not winning the election? We are going to win the election,” Buhari said.
“Tinubu, the presidential candidate, a very well-known politician in the country, he was a two-term governor in Lagos State, the most resourceful state and the most visited state. So, I think the party was lucky to get him to be the candidate.”
But in Nigeria, spin doctors of the APC and opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and others in between on social media have been at each others’ jugular wanting the stigma to stick or go away.
Elsewhere, a non-governmental organisation has given the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) seven days to arrest Tinubu, while attaching US court documents to back up its claim that the candidate was involved in trafficking hard drugs.
On Channels Television on Wednesday, spokesman for the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council and Minister of State for Labour, Mr. Festus Keyamo SAN, sweated to debunk the forfeiture story.
Expectedly, the PDP wouldn’t let the story go, latching on to it. In a statement on Thursday by a spokesman for the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Council, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, and titled, “Drug Cartel: Atiku/Okowa Campaign Dismisses Tinubu’s Denials
…Says Forfeiture Establishes Link to Drug Money,” the PDP said: “The Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organization, after a review of issues arising from the linking of the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to a drug cartel surmised that the forfeiture of $460,000 by Tinubu to the authorities of the United States of America establishes a connection to drug money.
“Our Campaign maintains that Nigeria as a nation cannot afford to allow an individual with the remotest link to a drug cartel near the Presidential Villa.
“We insist that the mention of Asiwaju Tinubu’s name in a crime bordering on drugs and consequent upon which some monies were forfeited, raises a moral question and issues of serious security threat.
“How, for instance, will our nation cope with a President who will be consistently harassed, intimidated and blackmailed by a drug cartel?
“It is also disturbing that Asiwaju Tinubu’s handlers are running around an ocean of excuses from where they have been fetching what they believe will convince Nigerians.
“We ask; what business was Asiwaju Tinubu running that such a whopping sum of $460,000 would be deducted as tax from his account?
“It is easily deductible that the $460,000 removed from the account represented the illicit fund that accrued from the drug. That accounts for the reason why no other sum was removed from the account contrary to argument from Tinubu’s minders that the amount represented a tax.
“If indeed, like Asiwaju Tinubu’s handlers have said, Tinubu “took responsibility” for drugs money, it goes with saying that he must also take responsibility for the consequences of that action.”
A day earlier, the Director-General of the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Council, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, described the documents in circulation as a “campaign of calumny” adding that “The Muckrakers are back in business.”
On his Facebook page, he wrote, “The Muckrakers back in business. The Tinubu traducers on Tuesday returned to their usual campaign of calumny, this time waking up the carcass of a drug allegation in America that was buried in 1993. Long after the campaign failed in 2003, it resurfaced weeks to the primary election of the All Progressives Congress. The opponents thought it was lethal enough to make the APC disqualify Tinubu from the race.
“It failed spectacularly and Tinubu went on to win the primary with a landslide. The muckrakers are back again with the same story, dressed as ‘certified true copy’ from the U.S. Court.”
He flayed the documents, telling an online publication: “One of the unconscionable and wicked lies peddled by political opponents about Bola Ahmed Tinubu was to paint him erroneously as a drug baron. The accusation arose out of an investigation by FBI agent, Kevin Moss, of Tinubu and Compass Investment and Finance accounts at First Heritage Bank and Citi- Bank in the U.S.
“On January 10, 1992, Mr Kevin Moss requested and obtained a court order to freeze the accounts. On January 13, 1992, Mr Moss telephoned Tinubu in Nigeria to justify the amounts in the accounts, running into $1.4 million. Part of the money was said to have been deposited by two Nigerians, being investigated for drug offences.
“After the telephone conversation, Tinubu instructed his lawyer in the US to file a lawsuit against the order freezing his accounts. This dragged on till 15 September 1993, when an agreement was reached for an out-of-court settlement. Judge John A Nordberg, of the US district court for the Northern District of Illinois, read out the agreement reached by the two parties. Part of the funds, $460,000 was seized by the government.
“The FBI never charged Tinubu with any drug offence; the case did not go on trial. Tinubu was never convicted. And he was never barred from entering the United States. In 2003, ten years after, when the PDP opponents wanted to use the shuttered allegation to disqualify Tinubu from running for a second term in Lagos, the Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun made an enquiry with the American Consulate on Tinubu’s status.
“The Consulate gave Tinubu a clean bill in a reply by the Legal Attache, Michael H. Bonner. The letter read: “Our sincerest greetings to you and all of the law enforcement personnel in the Nigeria Police Force, whose continued assistance is very much appreciated. In relation to your letter, dated February 3, 2003, reference number SR. 3000/IGPSEC/ABJ/VOL. 24/287, regarding Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a records check of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Crime Information Centre (NCIC) was conducted.
“The results of the checks were negative for any criminal arrest records, wants or warrants for Bola Ahmed Tinubu (DOB 29 March 1952). For information of your department, NCIC is a very centralized information centre that maintains the records of every criminal arrest and conviction within the United States and its territories,”
“Almost thirty years after the allegation was discharged and the case declared dead, Tinubu’s opponents keep waking up its corpse, in futile efforts to malign him.”
