Politics
APC Confirms Tinubu’s ‘Drug Trafficking Allegation’ In US, Gives Reason He Forfeited $460,000
Legal team of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has clarified the circumstances surrounding the forfeiture…
Legal team of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has clarified the circumstances surrounding the forfeiture of the sum of $460,000 to the government of the United States of America by the President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
Verse News Nigeria reports that the Labour Party (LP) presidential Candidate, peter Obi in a petition filed at the Presidential Election Tribunal seeks to nullifies Tinibu’s victory his drug tracffickig allegation in US in 1993.
He argued that Tinubu’s forfeiture of his funds to the US government over a drug trafficking allegation was an indication that he engaged in infractions that were enough to disqualify him from contesting an election.
Responding to the allegation, APC’s lawyers led by Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN said that Tinubu merely surrendered funds in 10 bank accounts that were opened in either his name or that of Compass Finance and Investment Co.
He told the tribunal that funds in the said accounts, which were domiciled in two commercial banks, were subject to a civil forfeiture proceeding in Case ‘No: 93C4483.’
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According to the APC, the purported decision of the United State District Court Northern District of Illinois, Eastern division in the said case, was not a fine but a decree of forfeiture of the amount of $460,000 to the United State pursuant to the settlement of claim by the parties to the case.
To clarify the claim, the legal team told the court that the Federal Government had as far back as 2003, through the American Consulate in Nigeria, inquired about Tinubu’s criminal record.
It said the outcome of the inquiry which FG made through the Inspector-General of Police, yielded a clean bill of health that unequivocally and unreservedly cleared Tinubu of any criminal record, in the United States of America.
It further argued that the said forfeiture Tinubu made to the US government, having lasted a period of 29 years, was no longer a valid ground to challenge his eligibility to contest the presidential election.