Festus Keyamo, chief spokesman for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council, has admitted that Bola Tinubu, the party’s flag bearer, was a co-tenant to wanted cocaine dealers in Chicago in the state of Illinois.
Tinubu was, however, oblivious of the kind of work the people he shared a “block of flats” with were into, Keyamo said as he tried to exonerate his principal from allegations of drug trafficking in light of the release of court documents that suggested Tinubu’s ties to illicit drug business and money laundering in the United States.
“What happened was that Asiwaju (Bola Tinubu) went to open an account. The address which he used in opening the account was the address used by these people…(sic). I think some blocks of flats. Maybe, he happened to be in that block of flats too.
“So, they now link it that the other people they were investigating for narcotics are in the same address used by Asiwaju to open that account,” Keyamo said on Wednesday on Channels Television programme as he seeks to explain away and downplay the fresh controversies that had been trailing the former Lagos governor involvement in drug peddling.
The certified copies of the 1993 case was recently released by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The documents confirmed that the U.S. government had in July 1993 sought forfeiture of proceeds of narcotics Tinubu was accused of laundering. The matter was resolved in a compromise between the Tinubus and the U.S. authorities, with the Tinubus being asked to keep the money in the Heritage Bank account while the $460,000 in the Citibank account was forfeited.
The former Lagos governor has come under intense public scrutiny over his opaque and less than desirable past, health status and allegations of corruption. He has not personally commented on the latest case, but his campaign managers have emphasised that the matter was inconsequential and would not be a factor in the upcoming elections.
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