The Spokesman for the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo has denied the allegation that Bola Tinubu the presidential candidate of the party was convicted in the United States of America, USA on drug-related charges.
The APC presidential hopeful has recently been challenged to explain his alleged conviction in the US in the early 1990s, following a document released a few days ago by the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Tinubu, a former Lagos state governor and APC National Leader has denied this allegation, blaming his political enemies for a plot to bring him down ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
The politician is considered one of the frontrunners alongside Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Labour Party, respectively.
Speaking on Channels Television Politics Today on Wednesday, Keyamo said Tinubu was not convicted of drug-related crime, and that he was only made to pay a fine for failing to pay taxes on some of his investments.
The APC spokesman also said the APC presidential candidate’s action was not deliberate after the documents showed that Tinubu was convicted by the court and made to pay $460,000 as settlements for alleged drug dealing and tax evasion allegations.
He explained that the plot by political rivals to discredit Tinubu ahead of the 2023 election using unfounded allegations will fail, blaming Tinubu’s ‘detractors’ in the PDP for peddling the lies.
He said, “The deposits he made there (in banks) are what bankers called investments; he kept the money there and he was getting interests. They (the US government) said he had not paid tax on those interests. That is all and guess what? The banks are supposed to deduct the tax from the source.
“Out of the 10 accounts, it was only one account – the one in Heritage Bank – that they took $460,000 as the tax on interest that he benefited on the investment he made in those accounts. All the money in Heritage Bank was not taken; they took only $460,000 as tax.’’
Keyamo explained further that Tinubu was roped into the drug trafficking case of two Nigerians who once stayed in separate flats in the same building where the ex-governor stayed at a time in the US.
According to him, “He, Asiwaju, went to open an account. The address by which he opened the account was already used by these people…investigated for narcotics,” he claimed.’
“His (Tinubu’s) detractors keep bringing up these issues over and over when his political profile is rising when he wants to run for office or any political turn in his life.
“The date on the papers flying up and down is 2022. So, they are using this to confuse people that these are fresh papers. If documents are 40 years old or 100 years old, once you go to court and apply for certified true copies of those documents, they will give you those documents, but they will stamp the day they are giving you those documents.
“This is what our detractors, the PDP did. Perhaps that is what they went to the US for when they pretended that they went for high-level engagement. This is part of the high-level engagement they went for,” Keyamo, the current Minister of Labour and Employment also said.
