David Hundeyin: It Will be Disastrous to Elect President Indicted for Heinous Crime in US
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
A Nigerian-born United States-based investigative journalist, David Hundeyin, yesterday, doubled down on his exposé on the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Bola Tinubu, insisting that the world will further alienate Nigeria if it chooses to elect a leader with an international indictment.
Speaking on his findings on the forfeiture of $460,000 to the American government by the politician, Hundeyin insisted that Nigeria was already a pariah nation in many parts of the world, explaining that it will further negatively affect the country’s image.
Hundeyin, who spoke on Arise TV, THISDAY’s broadcast arm, urged Nigerians to read up the 57-page US report as a patriotic duty and reach their individual own conclusions.
He also disputed that Tinubu worked in Deloitte and Saudi Aramco after the official feedback he got from the firms. He stressed that even if he (Tinubu) was a consultant, there was no way he would earn $850,000 at the time even as an equity partner.
Hundeyin added that when Deloitte was subpoenaed on the matter, the firm said it never knew the APC presidential candidate and couldn’t find his records with the company.
He urged the politician to explain how he could have been asked to forfeit a $460,000 tax on a $28,000 annual salary, ostensibly in response to a defence from Tinubu’s camp which said the $460,000 seized by the US authorities was tax-related.
The journalist maintained that the US report on the incident clearly stated that the matter was related to trafficking in narcotics and not payment for a tax default.
He disclosed that a Nigerian lawyer was already taking up the issue independently, explaining that the argument that the misdemeanour did not take place in Nigeria and, therefore, should be discarded did not hold water.
Describing it as possibly the biggest scandal in Nigerian history, Hundeyin noted that it was unfathomable that someone who was indicted for being a part of an illegal drug ring could be in the race to become Nigeria’s next president.
Hundeyin “This isn’t a case of someone being involved in a contract fraud or that someone stole money. That’s the usual thing in Nigeria and it’s no longer a surprise. But this is a whole new level.
“It’s bad enough that everyday we have to live with the reality that Nigerians who live abroad are guilty by association anywhere Nigeria is mentioned. It’s difficult to quantify the amount of damage that this will do to us if he becomes the president.
“ The world will begin to view us through that prism in a way that not even Colombia in the days of Escobar managed to do. It would be disastrous because we are already a pariah.”
The APC presidential candidate has been a subject of discussion on the social media since Hundeyin posted a documentary of his alleged drug-related activities.
On why he was doubling down on Tinubu, Hundeyin said his intentions were to alert the Nigerian electorate concerning the character of the man intending to rule them from next year and also to nudge them to make the right decision.
He stressed that his intentions were borne out of love for the country, and said his mission was to ensure that Nigerians did not make the same mistake they made with the current administration in 2015.
Hundeyin explained that according to his investigation of the matter, it remained questionable that someone with a $28,000 annual salary could have a deposit of $1.4 million in the bank, insisting that Tinubu on discovering that his accounts were getting frozen, started buying real estate with the funds.
