By Progress Godfrey
Reaction has trailed the recent statement by Spokesperson of Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, that trending US case exonerates the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu.
Mr Keyamo said during an interview with Channels TV’s Politics Today on Wednesday, monitored by The Explainer, that the court document which surfaced online, alleging that a United States District Court judgement from the Northern District of Illinois had taken possession of Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s money over his involvement in drug trafficking was false.
The senior advocate of Nigeria said Mr Tinubu was not a defendant in the said case and was not the treasurer of any narcotics group as speculated.
He said, “The issue is not a new one. You saw some blogs and news sites, online sites making weird headlines as ‘breaking news, just-in, fresh facts. Those are not fresh facts; they are not issues. These issues have been in the public domain for more than 20 years and have been sufficiently addressed.
“None of these allegations deserve any explanation again because they have been explained over and over. There can not be an indictment if Asiwaju is not a defender or was not a defendant to that case. I repeat it for the umpteenth time, I don’t want to sound like a broken record here. Asiwaju was not a party to that case.
“They never mentioned him as the treasurer of any narcotics group, they said he was treasurer of Mobil, He was found to have worked for an organisation owned by the people there were investigating.”
Mr Keyamo further said the accounts involved were linked to Tinubu’s family and business, but only one account was sued, not him (Tinubu).
“It was just an account that was sued, not him. It was an account in his name that was sued so how could you indict him if there was no account?” he added.
“Not in one person’s name. There were ones linked to his mother. He took responsibility for all of them because they were all Tinubu’s family. His mother was there, his company was there, his brother was there, ” he added
Among reactions that have trailed social media over Mr Keyamo’s statement is that of David Hundeyin, a Nigerian investigative journalist, writer and activist.
Tweeting via his official Twitter account @DavidHundeyin, he said: “Mr @fkeyamo I put it to you that you are a despicable liar and a miserably mediocre lawyer. You cannot lie like this in 2022. I will destroy you in less than 7 minutes if you agree to discuss this story with me on any TV station of your choice. This is an open challenge.”
