In earlier articles, I referenced the fact that Nigeria has never been peopled at the highest levels with individuals of such odium and certified chicanery and venality as the present. Apart from the obvious corruption baggage and the fact that citizens number 1, 2 & 3 all came to power via blatant violations of extant laws mysteriously whitewashed by a prostrate judiciary, they chillingly have a similar habit of having political opponents die tragically. Nigeria has never had it so bad but it gets worse. What could be worse than the lunatics running the asylum?
A viral post claims, “Tinubu packed the entire APC members to a Climate Conference #Cop28 using money that we don’t even have. A country in debt for God’s Sake.
…but funny part is, China brought 1,411 people, the same number with the broke Nigeria…
“About 87% of them APC registered members all fully paid by the FG using govt funds. A country in DEBT…
“Take a look at the names the FG FUNDED with Nigeria’s money:
Gilbert Ramez Chagoury: Confidante of Mr President.
“Why are we so wasteful and you’re telling the Nigerian people to tie their belts that the nation is poor when you’re spending our money frivolously” – Sarah Ibrahim
So Tinubu and suffering Nigerians sponsored Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese billionaire who donated $1billion to the Clinton Foundation, to Dubai?
•President Bola Tinubu’s yacht
In my article, “A Tale of Two presidential politicians: Trump, Tinubu and financial crimes in the USA,” I stated that “It is noteworthy that the Nigerian government itself has pursued forfeiture of assets looted from Nigeria in the US as well including those of former Nigerian oil minister Deziani Madueke such as jewelry and a luxury yacht.” Little did I expect that Tinubu would then sign a N2.7 trillion supplementary budget to similarly acquire a N6billion luxury yacht in front of our faces.
My article then queried, “One key question is why did Tinubu not go to prison like the drug lords to whom he was banker?
…(it) could be that he settled the forfeiture matter without prosecution and imprisonment by covertly agreeing to provide evidence against his coconspirators.
Recently, shady Lebanese Nigerian businessman Gilbert Chagoury was charged with election finance violations in the US. However, he obtained some concession supposedly because of unexplained cooperation with the US authorities. According to Bloomberg,
“Between 2012 and 2016, Chagoury sought to help fund election campaigns of U.S. politicians believed to be “supportive to his cause” according to documents filed by the U.S. in the Fortenberry case. In total, he provided about $180,000 to four U.S. political candidates, according to a deal he reached with the Justice Department. Foreign nationals are prohibited from contributing to U.S. campaigns.
Chagoury paid $1.8 million in fines in December 2019 to resolve the investigation, the Justice Department announced last March. His “unique assistance to the United States” helped close the probe, his deferred prosecution agreement said, without specifying the nature of the assistance.”
Chagoury whose crimes even led to the ouster and conviction of U.S. congressman Fortenberry over an illegal $30,000 campaign contribution last year strangely did not receive any jail time.
The US takes illicit foreign election financing seriously and even the Buhari regime’s American collaborator in attacks against my human rights advocacy, Doug Wead, was arrested and charged with fraud in September 2021. Wead had collected $100,000 from a Russian and remitted $25,000 to the Trump campaign disguised as a donation from his American partner in crime.”
What is startling here is that we see Tinubu who already saturated the top echelon of his regime with dubious elements brazenly hobnobbing with equally dubious elements of the private sector variety.
The biggest American consulate in the world is being done by crooked Lebanese billionaire Gilbert Chagoury at the cost of half a billion dollars.
He’s one of those referenced in this Tinubu Dubai jamboree despite having been on US terror no-fly list as well as charged with election financial crimes in U.S. and convicted of Abacha loot laundering in Europe too.
Why is Nigeria sponsoring a billionaire who has donated $1billion to the Clintons and most importantly why does Tinubu insist on surrounding himself with international crooks?
My article continued, “James Ibori who was convicted by an Abuja Area Court and also a UK court for theft, managed to game the legal system to become Delta State governor where he continued in grander scale. After his tenure, he was arrested, extradited and again re-convicted for theft and money laundering in the UK.”
This same Ibori was one of the earliest visitors to Tinubu in his early days in the Villa reinforcing the joke that APC stands for “All Past Criminals.”
But unbelievably, there is more, “in the current US civil forfeiture action against over $150million looted by Abacha and laundered into the US banking system by Gov Bagudu, going on in Washington, lawyers for the Bagudu family insist that a settlement should not include the words “forfeiture”. Despite Bagudu’s ongoing US money laundering forfeiture case, Tinubu made him budget minister!
The impunity with which Tinubu is carrying on is galling especially against the backdrop of two recent events.
Firstly, ex-US Congressman George Santos’ expulsion and indictment.
“A scandal-plagued Republican congressman who allegedly lied about his life to get elected last year has been charged with 13 federal offences…fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds.
“Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself,” Breon Peace, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York…
Santos said he had degrees from New York University and Baruch College despite neither institution’s having any record of his attending.
He claimed to have worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, which also was untrue.”
The similarities between ex-Rep Santos and Sen Tinubu’s falsehoods and fabrications on institutions, employment and government forms in addition to money laundering is uncanny. He falsely claimed to have attended University of Chicago and worked with Deloitte Consulting both since debunked. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.
The other development last week also is the decision by the US Appeals Court that ex-President Trump can be civilly sued for actions he took as president which were inconsistent with his duties and thus has no immunity for his role in trying to steal the election. Yes the courts allowed policemen to sue an ex-president for attempted violent election theft!!! This is what real judiciaries do.
Tinubu’s addiction to certified international criminals is just as egregious and disturbing as his primitive acquisition and conspicuous consumption. In a functional or sane democracy, he would be impeached for primitive acquisition of the luxury yacht and conspicuous consumption in the Dubai junket just as Santos was for misusing funds for pornography and clothes. But sanity and Nigeria’s misrulers cannot be used together in the same sentence. The lunatics are after all running the asylum.
The fact of the matter is Tinubu is not conducting himself like someone elected by people but like a Viking who conquered a nation and thus occupation and pillaging of the captured state is going on full blast. And Dubai of course is the “new UK” of illicit financial inflows for Nigeria’s misruling class. This is the only way it makes sense.
Otherwise why buy a high fuel consumption yacht amidst a 300% fuel price hike and fly hundreds on an international jamboree with a currency depreciation of 40%? Only a criminal mindset can understand Nigeria. Rather than go from consumption to production, APC is going from consumption to exhaustion!
“No fewer than 35 past and present governors and 299 former office holders in Nigeria have been linked with multi-billion choice properties in London and Dubai…over $400m to acquire 800 properties in Dubai…15 former ministers; one judge; 14 police, security and military chiefs; lawmakers; five staff members in the Presidency; 11 officers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC); and 16 heads of departments and agencies. Also on the list are 50 businessmen serving as fronts for Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs); 158 suspected PEP proxies; and 13 known Nigerian law enforcement agency suspects.
The facts and figures, including names, were laid bare on Tuesday by an Associate Fellow, Chatham House, Mr. Mathew Page in a presentation at a training session by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC)…tagged “Capacity building for investigators on investigating Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs).”
“IFFs through the Real Estate and Education sectors: Implications for investigators.”
He said while a serving governor in the Northwest has eight Dubai properties ($5million), a former PDP national chairman acquired 11 Dubai and two London homes at $18million.
He said a former Deputy Senate President secured 14 Dubai properties at $12million and one of his successors bought eight Dubai assets and three UK properties at $15million.”
The British King is one of the few world leaders to have a royal ship. It is King Charles and Tinubu must think Nigeria is a monarchy so he must sail in royalty in a ship.
Nigeria is no longer a “Republic” as declared in 1963 when it broke away from remote rule by the British monarchy even after independence. Republics are emancipated peoples. Nigeria is now captured by home-grown neocolonialists who are looting everything to everywhere abroad far worse than the British could have done. In fact, the British amalgamated Nigeria to use southern resources to manage the north. Nigeria’s kleptocrats, if anything, are far more disastrous to Nigeria’s economy than even British colonialists with a royal charter to exploit. Nigeria is a “Raped Public.”
Buhari’s nomadic presidency that brought his Fulani kin and cows from around West Africa to invade, loot and pillage Nigeria’s farmlands, forests and people has been upgraded to a nomadic Tinubu presidency that congregates criminal kin to mop and export scarce forex resources squandering and laundering them abroad.
It is now December and the Diaspora traveling home for Christmas with hard earned dollars might crash the exchange rate as we’ve always done for decades but the primitive consumers will wreck it again with their insatiable forex lust. This is why Diaspora must stop subsidising the Fraudulent Rape Public of Nigeria. We must boycott sending and spending dollars in Nigeria. The time when Diaspora de work baboon de chop must come to an end effective December 2023.
