Tinubu’s $460,000 Dollars forfeiture: PDP mulls legal action
INDICATIONS emerged on Sunday that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) will proceed to court to prevail on the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) to take necessary steps to stop the All Progressive Congress ( APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu from contesting the 2023 Presidential election.
Debo Ologunagba, The PDP National Publicity Secretary (NPS), while addressing Journalists at the party’s secretariat, Wadata Plaza, on Sunday, said the party will be challenging Tinubu’s eligibility to participate in the 2023 Presidential election, based on the judgement of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that resulted in Tinubu forfeiting the sum of $460,000 in one of the accounts linked to him.
This is coming despite clarifications by the chief spokesman of the Tinubu-shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, that the former Lagos State Governor was “roped in the drug trafficking case involving two Nigerians who once stayed in separate flats in the same building where the ex-governor stayed at a time in the US.
Keyamo had while defending the controversial document recently released by the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois declared that “Tinubu took responsibility for all the 10 accounts because they were also traced to his mother and “relatives”.”
The matter had ended in a settlement that led to Tinubu forfeiting the sum of $460,000 in one of the accounts linked 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 said
But the PDP however, called on INEC and other relevant agencies “not to succumb to the blackmail of the APC but to be focused and carry out its duties in accordance with the Constitution and the Electoral Act so as the engender confidence in the citizens with respect to the integrity of those seeking public office in our country.”
When reminded that INEC is incapable of preventing the APC candidate from contesting the election without proper court pronouncements in Nigeria, the PDP image maker said “All options are being considered. When we went to Court to seek redress in Osun, we did not tell anyone and this one will also not be different”
He stated that the “APC must note that its schemes, denials, threats and resort to violence cannot help Asiwaju Tinubu. By the provision of Section 137 (1) (d) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) Asiwaju Tinubu is not eligible to contest the Presidential election in Nigeria.