The Spokesperson for the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, has claimed that the purported drug money that the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, forfeited in the United States was actually tax.
Keyamo made the statement in response to the controversy surrounding a document that was recently made public by the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, detailing investigation into Tinubu’s suspected involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering 30 years ago.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday night, Keyamo alleged that Tinubu worked for Mobil Oil and wasn’t the cartel’s treasurer. He also added that Tinubu had deposited money in US bank accounts as investments and received returns.
In the early 1990s, he alleged, US officials connected 10 accounts to Tinubu, and $460,000 was taken out of one of the accounts as tax on investments held in US institutions.According to the state minister for Labor, Tinubu accepted responsibility for all 10 accounts because they may be linked to his mother and “relatives” as well.
He explained that while the banks were obliged to remove taxes from the investments, they did not, and that Tinubu was not responsible for this “deliberate act.”
Keyamo said, “He, Asiwaju, went to open an account, the address by which he opened the account was already used by these people…investigated for narcotics.“The deposits he made there (in banks) are what bankers called investments; he kept the money there and he was getting interest. They (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 source.
“Out of the 10 accounts, it was only one account – the one in Heritage Bank – that they took $460,000 as tax on interest that he benefited on the investment he made in those accounts.“In fact, all the money in Heritage Bank was not taken; they took only $460,000 as tax.”
Keyamo contended that Tinubu has not been charged with a crime or found guilty, adding that the Peoples Democratic Party was responsible for the resurfacing of the contentious court document.
“His (Tinubu’s) detractors kept 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, they will bring up these issues.
“The date on the papers flying up and down, the date of certification 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, 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,” he added.