No Evidence Tinubu Is A Convict – PEPC

By Adesina Soyooye

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal Court has dismissed the much held view that President Bola Tinubu is a convict.

In its judgment on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, over the Presidential Election held on February 25, 2023, PEPT said there is no evidence to show that Tinubu was convicted of Drug charges in the United States of America.

Both the Labour Party, LP, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, along with their Presidential Candidates, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, had pleaded that Tinubu was not qualified to run for the office of the President because he was indicted in a Drug case in the US for which he forfeited money.

In its lead judgement, PEPC,  in the joint petition filed by the LP and its candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, posited that the evidence before it established that the $460, 000 fine that was imposed on Tinubu in the US, was in a civil matter not a criminal matter.

Such fine, it noted,  did not translate to a criminal conviction capable of  warranting Tibubu’s disqualification from  the presidential election contest.

Justice Haruna Tsammani, leader of the  five-member panel, was of the view that a careful look of the exhibits  before the court, showed that the case which led to the fine awarded against Tinubu, “was in the civil docket” of the court in the US.

Contrary to the contention of the Petitioners, he noted,  the case, was a civil forfeiture proceeding against funds that were in the bank and not an action against Tinubu as a person.

He described such civil forfeiture proceeding as “a unique remedy that is targeted at a property and not the owner.”

The court, also, held that Obi and the LP failed to show any indictment against Tinubu, or where he was arraigned, tried or convicted for any criminal offence in the USA.

It noted that  a letter the Inspector General of Police wrote in 2003 to the  American Embassy, confirmed that there was no criminal record against Tinubu in its centralized information center.

Both the letter from the IGP and the response from the US Embassy, it observed, are public documents that are admissible in evidence.

According to the Court, the Petitioners were unable to produce any evidence to establish that Tinubu was tried and convicted for a criminal offence.

It also held that a period of 10 years had elapsed since the said fine was imposed against Tinubu, and,  therefore, “not be a valid ground to seek his disqualification.

It accordingly dismissed that leg of the petition the LP and Obi filed to nullify his election as President.