Lawyers representing the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, have tackled President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima over their final submissions that the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja should not nullify their client’s election victory over a 30-year-old United States District Court judgment.
In 1993, Tinubu was ordered to forfeit 460,000 US dollars in his bank account suspected to be proceeds of narcotics deals.
Obi noted how the US judgment allegedly cited Tinubu’s US home as a drop-off point for heroin, urging the court to remove the president on that ground.
Tinubu’s team also argued that the said judgment 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.
But in his final address dated July 20, Obi’s lead counsel, Livy Uzoukwu, told the PEPC that Tinubu to date has not challenged the Order of Forfeiture made by the US Court, implying he has admitted to having forfeited monies traced to narcotics deals.
Uzoukwu added further Nv that the US judgment noted an investigation by the country’s customs which allegedly discovered the president’s home as a drop-off point for heroin.
