‘How Tinubu’s secret recording exposed Abacha’s looting’

BUSINESS DAY

Babafemi Ojudu, an author and former senator, recently shared an interesting story about how current President Bola Tinubu cleverly recorded evidence of corruption during Nigeria’s military rule in the 1990s.
Ojudu told this story while discussing his new book, “Adventures of a Guerrilla Journalist,” in an interview with Edmund Obilo. The story involves Sani Abacha, who ruled Nigeria from 1993 to 1998 and reportedly stole about $5 billion during his time in power. This money was hidden in banks across different countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. The Nigerian government is still working to get this money back.

The story takes place when Ojudu, working as a journalist at the time, met Tinubu in the UK where Tinubu was living in exile. Tinubu arranged a meeting with a Jewish lawyer who knew details about how Abacha was stealing money and who was helping him.

During the meeting, Tinubu pulled off a clever trick. While Ojudu was trying his best to remember everything the lawyer was saying (since he couldn’t take notes), Tinubu secretly recorded the conversation. Here’s how Ojudu described it:

“I was excited as a newsman. We went there and sat before the lawyer. He (the lawyer) kept reeling out how Abacha was stealing, and who was helping him,” he recounted.

“The name that was constantly mentioned was the Chagoury brothers. I was so excited but I felt so bad that because I couldn’t write. I needed to take notes. I kept trying to memorise whatever I could.”
Tinubu had hidden a tape recorder and pretended to go to the bathroom to flip the tape over. As Ojudu explained, “He said to me: Don’t worry yourself. I had a tape recorder with me. That time I went to the bathroom, I went to change the recording from side one to side two. That is why I flushed the toilet so that the man would not know that I was changing the tape.”

Later, when they returned home, Ojudu took the tape while Tinubu was sleeping. When Tinubu discovered this, he wasn’t happy. According to Ojudu: “He (Tinubu) called me at 8pm and said: Femi where are you, I can’t find that tape. I said it was with me. He said: what are you doing with it? I said I am going home tomorrow to publish it. He said if you publish it; you are dead. I said I would publish it and let them kill me.”

READ THE FULL STORY IN BUSINESS DAY