Bola Ahmed Tinubu: From Drug Lord to Presidential Candidate
Pablo Escobar once famously planned to become Colombia’s president during his time as South America’s most notorious drug trafficker. While he eventually failed, the ultimate narco trafficker’s dream of taking over the leadership of an entire country could be coming to fruition over 30 years later in Africa’s most populous country.
A criminal complaint bordering on issues relating to perjury on Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Form EC9 has been filed at the Magistrate Court of the FCT sitting at Zone 6 by a lawyer and civil advocate Barrister Mike Enahoro-Ebah. Attached to the request for criminal summons dated Thursday November 10, 2022, is damning evidence of wrongdoing by the APC presidential candidate including document forgery, perjury and potentially even an instance of identity theft.
It will be recalled that on July 13, 2022, West Africa Weekly published a long-read investigative story about the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his links to heroin trafficking and money laundering in Chicago during the 1980s and early 1990s. Subsequently on November 13, 2022, West Africa Weekly published a documentary based on the story titled ‘Bola Ahmed Tinubu: From Drug Lord to Presidential Candidate.’
The new revelations are the result of months of collaboration between Barrister Enahoro-Ebah and the Chicago law firm Leahy, Eisenberg & Fraenkel Ltd. Working on a brief to verify Bola Tinubu’s U.S. academic and employment records as given on his INEC Form EC9 and in several media appearances, Matthew J. Kowals, an Attorney with the above law firm sent out attorney subpoenas to Richard J. Daley College (formerly known as Southwest College), Chicago State University, Anderson Tax land Deloitte LLP.
At press time, West Africa Weekly was able to get hold of responses to the subpoenas from Richard Daley College, Chicago State University and Deloitte LLP. The documents contained in the responses, which differ sharply from the documents and information submitted to INEC by Tinubu, make up the basis for the legal action filed by Enahoro-Ebah. Among the many discrepancies and omissions as outlined in the action are:
i. Different dates of birth
ii. Failure to provide evidence of attendance of a school that appears on his academic record
iii. Failure to disclose a secondary citizenship
iv. Forgery of a university degree certificate and
v. A potential instance of identity theft.
The Accusations Laid Out
According to the court documents which are available in full here, Tinubu’s INEC Form EC9 (AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF PERSONAL PARTICULARS – Particulars of persons seeking elections to the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria), was not made available by INEC to Enahoro-Ebah when he requested for it, despite INEC being legally obligated to make it public. He subsequently filed a lawsuit against INEC (FHC/ABJ/CS/1337/2022), which was resolved in his favour on August 22, 2022
After beating INEC in court, he engaged Leahy, Eisenberg & Franekel Ltd to verify Tinubu’s U.S. records as stated on the sworn affidavit. The responses to these subpoenas, which were made available to West Africa Weekly shortly after the filing of the court process, show evidence that the APC presidential candidate committed perjury on his Form EC9, which could be grounds for criminal prosecution.
Further, Enahoro-Ebah says that when the discrepancies between the documents subpoenaed from Chicago State University and the documents submitted to INEC were pointed out to the university, a lawyer in the United States suspected to be working for Tinubu, contacted Leahy, Eisenberg & Franekel Ltd, asking them to “destroy” the documents.
Speaking exclusively to West Africa Weekly, Enahoro-Ebah said:
“Chicago State University was cooperative until we sent them the INEC copy of the certificate pointing out the differences and asking them if they issued this. Next thing we knew, an outside counsel contacted our lawyer asking that we “destroy” all documents because he made a technical error in the subpoena or something silly like that. So he [Tinubu] is currently fighting back from the US.”
