According to Vanguard, a human rights lawyer and activist, Olatunji Abayomi, has demanded a retraction of a report against the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu by an online journal, Sahara Reporters titled: “Threat of perjury trial: How Jonathan Blackmailed Bola Tinubu before 2011 Presidential election”. In his letter, Abayomi argued that the report is not only false, but defamatory.
“We demand a statement acknowledging your error of trying to damage our client’s reputation as well as a statement regretting the same.
“Please this matter must be attended to immediately otherwise you run the risk of multiple civil suits all over the world in defence of our client, “Abayomi wrote.
The lawyer said the report attempted to defame Tinubu’s reputation by spreading old, utterly false gossip in hope of wrongly destroying his prospects. Sahara Reporters, he said, failed to inquire diligently about Tinubu’s educational records to know that he was an award-winning alumnus of the Chicago State University. Also, there was no charge at the Federal High Court numbered FHC/ABJ/CR/04/2011, nor was Tinubu tried or convicted.
Besides, Abayomi noted that the United States Embassy, in its February 4, 2003 response to an inquiry by the Inspector-General of Police, stated that there is “no criminal arrest, records, wants or warrants for Bola Ahmed Tinubu.” “If you had checked readily available records, you would have found that he travels periodically to the United States. Had he been engaged in criminal wrongdoing, he would have been ineligible for entry into that country,” Abayomi wrote.
Check out the alleged Sahara Report below
A charge sheet prepared in 2011 by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mohammed Bello Adoke, aimed at charging with perjury former Lagos State governor and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has emerged.
The undated two-page charge sheet obtained by SaharaReporters was personally prepared by the Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke.
The charges, to which were attached four documents which includes Mr. Tinubu’s INEC form, A declaration affidavits also known as INEC Form CR 001, a letter stating that Tinubu did not attend Chicago State University which was obtained from FBI agent, Jennifer Dent, who was the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s assistant legal attaché at the US Consulate in Lagos in 2011.
In a response to the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Farida Waziri, through Bala Sanga, a Principal Staff Officer at the commission, Ms. Dent affirmed that the FBI’s check with the Chicago State University in the United States showed that contrary to his claims, Mr. Tinubu was never enrolled as a student, or graduated as one. The letter came a few months later, the EFCC had sought the agent’s help as of January 2011. The FBI agent did not respond until July some four months after the Presidential elections were concluded.
The charges also claimed that Mr. Tinubu perjured himself by claiming that he attended Government College in Ibadan between 1965 and 1968, as he had not done so. Mr. Adoke attached a copy of the list of students that graduated from Government College Ibadan to the charge sheet, Mr. Tinubu’s name was conspicuously missing on the list.
The documents, which are reproduced here, clearly show how Mr. Tinubu made the claims in reference.
SaharaReporters learnt that the charges which were prepared before the 2011 elections in April were never filed simply because Mr. Tinubu played ball in cutting a deal with President Jonathan to work against his own party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the presidential election. The ACN fielded former EFCC Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, as its presidential candidate, but he was defeated in all the Southwest states except Osun.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo made mention of the deal in his recently published autobiography, accusing President Jonathan of bribing Tinubu with a large sum of money to buy him off the ACN. The national leader of the APC has not denied the allegations included in Obasanjo’s book.
Although Tinubu was not officially charged for perjury, the Jonathan regime charged him before the Code of Conduct Tribunal in September 2011 for illegally operating foreign accounts.
Those charges were dropped after Tinubu reportedly cut a fresh deal with Mr. Jonathan in 2012.
Earlier on Monday, it was disclosed that Mr. Tinubu has renewed his prior interest in being the APC’s candidate for the vice-presidency. However, early this morning leaders his party rejected his candidacy and that of his nominee, Prof. Yemi Osibajo.
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