Nigeria’s elder statesmen and respected voices of conscience cannot continue to look away while serious questions surrounding the integrity and international reputation of the nation’s President remain unresolved.
Chief Akin Malaolu, President, Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum, said this in a statement issued on Sunday.
The ongoing legal battle in the United States over records relating to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has brought a matter of profound public interest back into focus.
‘The FBI has confirmed in court filings that its records concern a criminal investigation involving drug-trafficking offences and that Tinubu was the subject of an investigation.’ ‘This does not amount to a conviction, nor should anyone pretend that an investigation is proof of guilt. But it is unquestionably a matter that should concern every well-meaning Nigerian. The President of Nigeria is not an ordinary private citizen. Questions arising from a documented criminal investigation by a foreign law-enforcement agency go directly to issues of transparency, integrity and the international standing of the Nigerian state.
‘The question is therefore: why is there so much graveyard silence from those who have traditionally presented themselves as the conscience of the nation?
‘Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was President when Tinubu served as Governor of Lagos State. Whatever may have been known or investigated at the time, Nigerians are entitled to ask whether the Federal Government did everything within its powers to properly establish the facts.
‘Today, amid reports of political alignments involving the former President vis a vis his speculated support for Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid, Obasanjo’s silence on these troubling developments inevitably raises questions about whether political considerations are being allowed to compete with principle.
‘But this is not about Obasanjo alone. Where are Chief Emeka Anyaoku, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Professor Wole Soyinka, former President Goodluck Jonathan and the other respected Nigerians who have repeatedly spoken out when they believed that the country’s democracy, institutions or reputation were at stake?’ Malaolu asked.
He charged the elder statesmen to demand that the truth surrounding these U.S. investigations and the records being litigated over in American courts be brought into the open to the fullest extent permitted by law.
‘This is not a demand that anyone pronounce President Tinubu guilty. It is a demand for transparency, accountability and answers.
‘If there is nothing in the records that implicates the President in wrongdoing, then full lawful disclosure should help put the matter to rest. If legitimate questions remain, Nigerians deserve an independent, credible and transparent process through which those questions can be answered.
‘What is unacceptable is silence. There is, however, an even greater urgency that Nigeria’s leaders of conscience must recognise.
‘It would be tragic if Nigeria’s elder statesmen and leaders of conscience failed to act timeously, only for circumstances beyond Nigeria’s control to produce consequences of an entirely different magnitude.
‘The experiences of countries such as Venezuela and Panama should remind Nigerians that international legal and geopolitical developments can sometimes move with extraordinary speed. No responsible Nigerian should wish for, or predict, any particular outcome for Nigeria or its President. But neither should responsible leaders assume that nothing can happen simply because Nigerians are looking away. A stitch in time, they say, saves nine.’