BY: News Peddlers
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The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has released new documents related to Bola Tinubu's encounter with American authorities over drug trafficking and money laundering allegations.
Mr Tinubu, the ruling All Progressives Congress presidential candidate and former Lagos governor, has come under intense public and political scrutiny for his role in a drug trafficking case in Chicago in the early 1990s.
Mr Tinubu has remained silent on the narcotics scandal, which has dominated headlines since at least the mid-aughts, preferring to focus on other aspects of his background in corporate accounting, consulting, and pro-democracy activism. He did, however, state in his application to run for office with INEC that he had no prior criminal convictions.
Mr Tinubu's allies have also attempted to dismiss the incident entirely as a minor distraction to Nigeria's democratic experience because it occurred decades ago in a distant land.
However, Nigerians have insisted that the presidential candidate come clean about his involvement in the case, which resulted in him forfeiting up to $460,000 to US authorities in 1993.
The 56-page document released by the district court's headquarters in Chicago did not contain any significant new information, but it confirmed snippets of the case that had been shared informally by the media for years. Following a July 13 article in West Africa Weekly, journalist David Hundeyin rekindled interest in Mr Tinubu's drug-dealing past.
The most recent certified copies of the court case, obtained on August 10, revealed that Mr Tinubu and two others, K.O. Tinubu and Alhaji Mogati, were involved in the banking of illicit drug proceeds and money laundering through Heritage Bank and Citibank. It was unclear whether 'Alhaji Mogati' was a misspelling of Mr Tinubu's foster mother, Alhaja Abibatu Mogaji, who died in 2013.
The United States government sought forfeiture of narcotics proceeds from Mr Tinubu in July 1993. The matter was settled through a compromise reached between Tinubus and US authorities, with Tinubus being asked to keep the money in the Heritage Bank account while forfeiting the $460,000 in the Citibank account.
On September 21, 1993, a federal judge dismissed the case with prejudice, effectively barring all parties from litigating the case again. However, it was unclear whether Nigerian authorities could still charge Mr Tinubu in Nigerian courts in connection with the same case.
Kalu Kalu Agu, an Abuja-based lawyer with ties to opposition politics, is among those seeking to hold Mr Tinubu accountable for the incident. He petitioned the EFCC and the NDLEA, Nigeria's anti-graft and anti-narcotics agencies, to investigate Mr Tinubu's involvement in the drug charges before the February presidential elections.
Mr Kalu Agu gave both offices seven days in the November 8 petition to take action against Mr Tinubu or be compelled through a judicial order of mandamus, a process that involves ordering a public department to perform a public duty.
"In our opinion, you have a historic duty to ensure that Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu is held accountable for his deeds in money laundering arising from his involvement in narcotics trafficking," Mr Kalu Agu said from his Abuja think tank, the Centre for Reform and Public Accountability.
Mr Tinubu, who is on a campaign tour across the country, did not respond to a request for comment on the court documents released and Mr Kalu Agu's petition to federal authorities. His campaign's spokesman also declined to comment.
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