Director of Media and Publicity to the Presidential Campaign Council of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bayo Onanuga, has wondered why Nigerian media is interested in promoting what clearly is a fake news.
Media report has been trending on the involvement of the Presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in drug dealings and money laundering in the United States of America.
The report was said to have emanated from a document purportedly released by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, indicting Tinubu in drug dealings and money laundering in Chicago
The documents which went viral since yesterday evening, November 8, gave the details of Tinubu’s alleged indictment in drug deals and receipt of illegal money while in the U.S.
The 56-page document sought to confirm that Tinubu has been facing conviction on narcotics charges in the US, especially with the regard to the fact that he forfeited up to $460,000 to the U.S. authorities in 1993.
Onanuga described the documents in circulation as a “campaign of calumny,” adding that “The Muckrakers are back in business.”
Onanuga, on his Facebook page wrote: “The Muckrakers back in business.
“The Tinubu traducers on Tuesday (November 8), returned to their usual campaign of calumny, this time waking up the carcass of a drug allegation in America that was buried in 1993.
“Long after the campaign failed in 2003, it resurfaced weeks to the primary election of the All Progressives Congress. “The opponents thought it was lethal enough to make the APC disqualify Tinubu from the race.
“It failed spectacularly and Tinubu went on to win the primary with a landslide. The muckrakers are back again with the same story, dressed as ‘certified true copy’ from the U.S Court.”
The APC campaign media and publicity director, said that he had perused the new document and dismissed it as the same old tale.
“It is as dead as a dodo,” Onanuga said and made reference to a section of the campaign’s FAQ’s manual.
“One of the unconscionable and wicked lies peddled by political opponents about Bola Ahmed Tinubu was to paint him erroneously as a drug baron.
“The accusation arose out of an investigation by FBI agent Kevin Moss of Tinubu and Compass Investment and Finance accounts at First Heritage Bank and Citi- Bank in the U.S.
“On January 10, 1992, Mr Kevin Moss requested and obtained a court order to freeze the accounts.
“On January 13, 1992, Mr Moss telephoned Tinubu in Nigeria to justify the amounts in the accounts, running into $1.4 million. Part of the money was said to have been deposited by two Nigerians, being investigated for drug offences.
“After the telephone conversation, Tinubu instructed his lawyer in the US to file a lawsuit against the order freezing his accounts.
“This dragged on till 15 September 1993, when an agreement was reached for an out of court settlement. Judge John A Nordberg, of the US district court for the Northern District of Illinois, read out the agreement reached by the two parties. Part of the funds, $460,000 was seized by the government.
“The FBI never charged Tinubu with any drug offence; the case did not go on trial. Tinubu was never convicted. And he was never barred from entering the United States.
“In 2003, ten years after, when the PDP opponents wanted to use the shuttered allegation to disqualify Tinubu from running for a second term in Lagos, the Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun made an enquiry with the American Consulate on Tinubu’s status.
“The Consulate gave Tinubu a clean bill in a reply by the Legal Attache, Michael H. Bonner.
“The letter read: “Our sincerest greetings to you and all of the law enforcement personnel in the Nigeria Police Force, whose continued assistance is very much appreciated. In relation to your letter, dated February 3, 2003, reference number SR. 3000/IGPSEC/ABJ/VOL. 24/287, regarding Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a records check of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Crime Information Centre (NCIC) was conducted.
“The results of the checks were negative for any criminal arrest records, wants or warrants for Bola Ahmed Tinubu (DOB 29 March 1952).
“For information of your department, NCIC is a very centralised information centre that maintains the records of every criminal arrest and conviction within the United States and its territories.”
Onanuga said that almost thirty years after, the allegation was discharged and the case declared dead, Tinubu’s opponents keep waking up its corpse, in futile efforts to malign him.

Spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Dino Melaye has made it clear to Governor Nyeson Wike of Rivers State that the party’s Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, will win next year’s election in the State, with his support or without it.
He said that Governor Wike cannot do anything to change who the people of his state would vote for, saying that the Governor is not the custodian of votes in the State.
Dino Melaye, who spoke on Arise TV programme, said that it is wrong for Wike to think Atiku would fail in Rivers State.
“It’s very fallacious for you to think that because that governor is not with your candidate he will lose the State.
“I will cast your mind back to a day when you sat down and wrote result for a State. We are not in that era any longer. With the advent of BVAS and electronic transmission of results, in Rivers State for example, Governor Wike is not the custodian or he is not to appropriate the votes of Rivers.
“If you now go to elections as it’s now with electoral reforms, the grassroots matters; the electorate matter; the youth and women matter. “That is why Atiku is speaking directly to the conscience of the electorate,” Melaye said.

The spokesperson for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Dino Melaye has cautioned Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, against dragging the Presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar into the Fulani herders’ attacks in Benue State.

Dino Melaye, who spoke today, November 8 in an Arise TV interview, said that it is unfair for Governor Ortom to paint Atiku in a bad light just so as to justify why he would not support him, as a Fulani man, due to atrocities of the Fulani people in Benue State.

Governor Ortom had said in Makurdi, the state capital yesterday, November 7 that he would not support Atiku, the Presidential candidate of the party under which he is governing the state, because he (Atiku) is a Fulani man.

The governor spoke in the presence of his colleagues – Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State; Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State; Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State and Okezie Ikpeazu Abia State.

The Benue State Governor said: “my people are being killed and you want me to be quiet; you want me to be a slave to a Fulani. It’s better I die. Anybody supporting Atiku in Benue is an enemy of the state.”

But Dino Melaye described the statement of Governor Orton as amounting to dragging Atiku into the mud over the issue which he does not cause.

“Everybody has the right to support any presidential candidate of his choice. But it is unfair for Governor Ortom to put the blame of criminalities of Fulani herders going on in Benue State on the lap of our presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

“I also condemn the attacks and killing of people in Benue, but this has nothing to do with Atiku Abubakar.”

The PDP Presidential Campaign Council’s spokesman reasoned that all Fulani people are evil, adding that there are good Muslims and Christians among the Fulani.

According to him, former Nigerian Presidents, Shehu Shagari and Umaru Yar’Adua were both Fulani who appointed Benue indigenes into their respective governments.