Three Hunchbacks: Their Case Against Tinubu

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

Last time out, we drew the attention of readers to five sore points the detractors of APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would most likely pinch remorselessly, in deflating his ambition and trajectory towards clinching the ultimate prize: the Nigerian presidency in 2023. Sadly for the supporters of the hard-working and strategic-thinking former Lagos governor, there are more of such incendiary projectiles lying around his pedigree for his traducers to haul at his candidature in this electioneering season.

One of the slanting pillars he would find extremely difficult to make upright is the prevailing sentiments amongst most south easterners who believe that a sense of justice, fair play and fairness has been injured by the emergence of a strong south western candidate at a time when the North-South power pendulum has fortuitously swung towards the South. In their calculations, the least that the southwest could do in this circumstance, having held power as both the president and vice president consecutively (from the commencement of the fourth republic), is to permit their southern brothers – who have been perennially denied the power-throne – to take a stab at it. Tinubu’s  supporters are clearly conscious of the animus growing in the East against their principal, and have virtually written off that region, in their permutations, as a catchment area for any significant inroads for votes. But can Tinubu attain victory without 25% of votes cast in at most two of the eastern states – considering the diversionary potential of the two major candidates from the North – Abubakar Atiku, and considerably less, Rabiu Kwankwanso?

  The drama of Tinubu’s arraignment at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) in 2011 left a sour taste in the mouths of his opponents, and reassured many ‘bystanders’ that Nigeria was not serious about fighting corruption. Tinubu was docked on charges of operating 10 foreign accounts, directly or indirectly via his wife and children, while serving as a state governor between 1999 and 2007.

The funky chairman of the tribunal, Justice Danladi Yakubu Umar, eventually ruled, according to media reports, that “the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case against the accused as no evidence of proof or affidavit was attached or issued to the court, adding that in the circumstance, the Tribunal lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case and therefore quashed the charges.”  Tinubu was also accused of false asset declaration prior to his first swearing-in ceremony as Lagos governor in 1999. 

 Flash-forward to 2016, and hear the lamentation of the same CCT czar, Danjuma Umar, in a Guardian Nigeria report of 25 March, 2016: “On the discharge of the former Lagos State governor by the tribunal some years ago simply because the CCB (Code of Conduct Bureau) failed to fulfill the condition precedent, we have since realised that we acted in error in discharging Mr. Tinubu on that ground and we have since departed from that error.”

Incidentally, some of those several “infamous” foreign bank accounts enrolled in the famously bungled CCT case of 2011 were part of damning exhibits allegedly presented before a US district court where a younger Tinubu was accused of more alarming criminal activities, according to unchallenged reports in leading American publications, The Daily Beast and Bloomberg News. The bank accounts include the following: (1) First Heritage Bank Country, Club Hills, Illinois, USA; Account Name: Bola Tinubu; Account Number: 263226700. (2) Citibank NA New York, USA; Account Name: Bola Tinubu & Compass Finance and Investment Company Ltd.; Account Numbers: 39483134, 39483396, 4650279566, 00400220, 39936404, 39936383. (3) Citibank International, New York; Account Name: Bola Tinubu; Account Numbers: 52050-89451952 and 52050-89451953.

This is how Michael Weiss of The Daily Beast published on April 27, 2015 (and updated on April 14, 2017), the colourful but devastating details of youthful malfeasance, nonetheless un-rebutted, as we speak, by Tinubu or his aides: “Former Lagos provincial governor Bola Tinubu, affectionately nicknamed the Jagaban, is today seen as a shrewd if not “deeply Machiavellian” Svengali in Nigeria’s politics as well as the architect of a hugely successful anti-corruption platform. But 20 years ago he had to forfeit nearly half a million dollars to the U.S. Treasury Department after being named as an accomplice in a white heroin-trafficking and money-laundering ring that stretched from West Africa to the U.S. Midwest.

Although his case has been bandied about the Nigerian press for years, Tinubu’s involvement in a federal drug and racketeering investigation waged jointly by the DEA, FBI, and IRS has gone unreported elsewhere….

“At the time, Tinubu’s take home as a Mobil Oil Nigeria executive was a mere $2,400 a month and he claimed not to have any other revenue streams. Yet he still managed to deposit $661,000 into his individual money market account in 1990 and then another $1,216,500 a year later. He also opened more accounts with Citibank in its worldwide personal banking unit, transferring over half a million dollars from his First Heritage money market account into one of them in early 1991…”

 Despite its comprehensive tale of Tinubu’s past activities, the American online newspaper ends its damning report in some kind of attestation of Tinubu’s astuteness: “There’s no evidence that Tinubu was ever indicted for any crime. He eventually settled with the district court, turning over $460,000 of the seized $1.4 million, with the remainder released back to him.”

However, Tinubu’s supporters are quick to cushion his defence with a 4 February, 2003 document reportedly issued by a legal attache at US Consulate in Lagos, Michael H. Bonner. The letter addressed to the former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, and published in the Vanguard newspaper of 10 February, 2003, says: “… 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.”

But the point of departure is consistent in this man’s astonishing run of luck, no one can say he has been convicted, or even arrested – but has he forfeited part of his resources to any government? Has he embraced settlement outside the vice grip of legal entanglement? Why? Even the much flaunted master strategist knows when to move, shift or bail out! 

We shall know by March, 2023 if he has managed another Houdini’s masterstroke, outwitting the vicious barbs of haters and opponents, in a truly enigmatic life’s journey.