Election Petition: Why Tinubu Will Not Escape Disqualification

Nigerians have expressed surprise on how the senator Senator representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District and a lawyer, Opeyemi Bamidele who came to court as witness to defend President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s turned around to justify and affirm that the New Nigeria’s president is guilty of $460,000 forfeiture from heroin trafficking in US.

VerseNews Nigeria reports that, Bamidele who was flaunting himself as a lawyer in the courtroom but was swept off when the Labour Party (LP ) lead council, SAN Livy Uzochukwu started questioning him.

A First, Bamidele claimed that the $460,000 that Timubu forfeited to the US government was a civil forfeiture, not a criminal one like LP alleged.  But when the erudite lawyer asked him if he knew that the judgment was based on a particular section of the US constitution, he then turned around and accepted.

Bamidele went ahead to name the particular section. According to the section, the judgment on the forfeiture that Timubu made in the US was based on this section, USC 982.

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The section says, “Criminal forfeiture under 18 USC 982 involves confiscating property as part of a criminal conviction. This type of forfeiture is contingent upon the successful prosecution and conviction of someone for engaging in illegal activity, such as drug trafficking or money laundering.”

This Online News Media gathered that if Tinubu was still living in the US by 1993, he would definitely be brought to court and sentenced. But because he was far away in Nigeria, they just had to make a call across.

Also, in 1993, Nigeria have no bilateral agreement with the US as its concerned exchange of prisoners or people that have committed crime  in each country like it happened in the case of Burjik Ashamu.

So if Nigeria had any kind of agreement with the US by that time, they would have made an extradition request.

However, following the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) which has come to the end of it’s first hearing, Tinubu may be disqualified as he has failed to provide solid evidences to defend the charges against him in the court.