An opposition party presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi has claimed that President Bola Tinubu’s home in the US was used as a drop-off point for heroine.
The Labour Party and its flag bearer said that in 1993 Tinubu was ordered to forfeit $460,000 in his bank account suspected to be proceeds of narcotics deals.
In his petition before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja, Obi argued that the president was at the time of the February 25 presidential election not qualified to contest the polls or any other election in Nigeria because of the United States District Court judgement that forced him to forfeit monies allegedly traced to drug trafficking.
The former Anambra governor insisted that the US cited Tinubu’s US home as a drop-off point for heroine and subsequently urged the court to remove the president on that ground.
However, in their final written address at the PEPC, Tinubu’s legal team led by Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN contended among other things that while the said drug forfeiture order came 30 years ago (1993), Section 137 (1) (e) of the 1999 Constitution states that a conviction has expired after 10 years.
Tinubu’s team also argued that the said judgement cannot be enforced in Nigeria because it is yet to be registered in Nigeria in line with the clear provisions of Section 3 of the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Ordinance and Foreign Judgment (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act.