Tinubu being wrongly painted as drug baron – Fani-Kayode

In this piece, Director of New Media of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode responds to media reports on the certified true copy (CTC) of US court proceedings in which APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was allegedly indicted of drug-related and money laundering offences…

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 reads:

“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 centralised 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.

MATTER CLOSED!