The Abuja Presidential Election Appeals Court has ruled that the Labor Party’s presidential candidate, peter obihe was unable to substantiate the accusations of drug trafficking in the United States against President Bola Tinubu.
A five-member panel of the court headed by Haruna Tsammani, while reading its main judgment on the substantive lawsuit, said that Tinubu was not convicted of any crimes in the United States.
Citing correspondence between the Nigerian police and the US embassy in Nigeria, Tsammani said the US consulate in Lagos cleared Tinubu of all criminal records in the United States.
Obi had argued in court that Tinubu was convicted of drug trafficking, for which the president lost $460,000.
But the court noted that Tinubu’s $460,000 forfeiture occurred in a civil case that cannot be grounds for disqualification from the election under Nigerian law.
Tsammani said documentary evidence before the court indicated that the forfeiture claim against Tinubu was in the “civil docket” of the US District Court of Illinois.
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In his reasoning, Tsammani explained that the civil forfeiture claim was not directed against Tinubu but against his assets.
He said there was no evidence that Tinubu was charged, prosecuted, tried, convicted and sentenced by the court’s forfeiture order for it to count as a criminal conviction disqualifying him from running for the presidency.