FACT CHECK: How True is The Viral Claim of MKO Abiola Being A Drug Trafficker?
Legit.ng journalist Ridwan Adeola Yusuf has over 4 years of experience in fact-checking.
Ikeja, Lagos state - On Monday, July 8, 2024, a video of David Hundeyin, a prominent Nigerian journalist and commentator, speaking scathingly of Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, hit the internet.
The recording, an interview Hundeyin granted the Noble Nigeria podcast, trended on X (formerly Twitter).
Source: Twitter
Its full version — a roughly three-hour conversation published on YouTube — on Sunday, July 7, 2024, has garnered over 30,000 views.
During the interview, Hundeyin markedly pronounced Abiola — the wealthy businessman and philanthropist who scored the highest number of votes in the June 12, 1993, Nigerian election and later controversially died in military custody — “a criminal”.
The interview was strategically published as it was released on Abiola’s 26th death anniversary. So understandably, it gained traction on X.
Listing Abiola’s alleged sins, Hundeyin, 34, described the late politician as a scammer, gun-runner, coup financier, and smuggler – all serious accusations.
He said:
“Before Tinubu (referring to Nigeria’s current president, Bola Ahmed), there was the original Tinubu who went by the name MKO Abiola. Despite all of his wealth and all of his money, his money was made under very similar circumstances (to Tinubu's) by the way because MKO was also a criminal; let’s be clear about that.
“There is no type of illegal activities that man was not involved in: gun-running, coup financing, smuggling of every kind of illegal commodity (alluding to trafficking), his hand was inside. And he made a fantastic fortune.”
Hundeyin added:
“There is nothing illegal that happened in Nigeria between 1978 and 1992 that MKO Abiola’s hand was not inside. That man made billions from everything that was wrong.”
Noteworthy that it is not the first time Hundeyin would puncture the reputation of the deceased. In the build-up to the 2023 presidential election in Africa’s largest democracy, the editor-in-chief of West Africa Weekly in an article titled: 'Bola Ahmed Tinubu: From Drug Lord to Presidential Candidate' alleged that Abiola traded in hard drugs during his lifetime.
The drug dealing rumour resurfaced after the July 7, 2024, Noble Nigeria podcast and went viral. Keywords like Abiola, David Hundeyin, and International Thief Thief, had 12,200; 10,700; and approximately 10,000 tweets respectively on Monday, July 8, 2024.
Source: Original
Samples of posts made on the topic can be found here, here, here, and here.
See the embedded tweets below:
Given Hundeyin's prominence and huge influence, the drug-running connections to which the late Abiola was linked should not pass without fact-finding. Hence, Legit.ng fact-checked the claim.
Verification of claim about Abiola being a drug trafficker
In the first place, this journalist discovered that Nigerians bandying the claim about the late Abiola being a drug dealer banked on remarks by foreigners.
Gary Busch, otherwise known as ‘Ocnus’, while responding to a June 19, 2008, article by one Abayomi Ferreira entitled 'Nwosu, June 12, Two Party System', commented on Abiola’s alleged drug connections.
Busch wrote:
“At the risk of annoying people, I shall point out again that while it is no doubt true that IBB (General Ibrahim Babangida, former military head of state) voided the June 12 election and precipitated a national emergency, the truth behind that has never been fully understood by the Nigerian populace.
"The Nigerian military were adamant that the Babangida government should never allow Abiola to run for office.
“The basis for this was the information being circulated in Washington, London and Lagos of Abiola’s alleged ties to the drugs business.
“The US, in particular, had expressed its strong opposition to Abiola as president; not because of his politics or allegations of corruption, but rather for the evidence they felt was correct about Abiola’s alleged drugs connections.
“This was raised in the military council on three occasions and Babangida was warned. He refused to take a decision until it was almost too late. When he did, he precipitated the crisis of June 12. His friends in the military supported him but were let down by IBB’s lack of decisiveness. US ambassador Walker (Lannon) and others visited IBB and told him but he dithered which made the impact worse.”
In the same vein, Michael Weiss, a contributing editor to the US-based tabloid, The Daily Beast, stated in a 2015 publication (updated in 2017) that Abiola “was accused of narcotics trafficking, according to Campbell.”
The alleged source whom Weiss mentioned in his piece was John Campbell, a diplomat who served as the United States ambassador to Nigeria from May 12, 2004, to July 19, 2007. Earlier, Campbell was a political counsellor in Nigeria in the late 1980s.
Source: Original
In his July 2022 article, Hundeyin relied on the penultimate paragraph of Weiss’ piece to accuse Abiola of drug trafficking.
The portion from the American media personality’s article reads:
“Drug charges do indeed appear to be the sine qua non for Nigerian high office.
"The year 1993, when Tinubu’s assets were seized, was a turbulent period for Nigeria following the cancellation of a national election and the establishment of a military dictatorship.
"Moshood Abiola, the rightful winner of that election, was accused of narcotics trafficking according to Campbell. So too is “Prince” Buruji Kashamu from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who has faced extradition back to the United States since 1998.
"Kashamu was indicted by a federal grand jury in Chicago for being the elusive “Alhaji,” a globetrotting drug kingpin who smuggled banned substance into O’Hare International Airport from Europe and Asia. Piper Kerman, the memoirist who inspired the Netflix series 'Orange is the New Black', famously worked for Alhaji.
"Kashamu denies the charges.”
Abiola’s family’s reaction to claim linked to Campbell
Meanwhile, in a statement signed on Tuesday, July 19, 2022, by Yushau Olalekan Abiola, MKO’s family noted that when the allegation first appeared in The Daily Beast in 2015, they confronted Campbell, who was alleged to have said MKO was accused of narcotics trading.
The Abiola family stated that Campbell said he knew nothing concrete, adding that the claim was a rumour he had heard from the military leadership in Nigeria, which he presumed was being peddled by persons who sought a justification for the annulment of the June 12, 1993, election, a poll widely acclaimed as the freest and fairest in the country’s history.
Legit.ng also contacted Campbell for further clarification but received no response.
Is it right to say MKO is a criminal as Hundeyin claimed?
Yusuf Temilola Nurudeen, a member of the national executive council (NEC) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), explained that only a court of law has the power to pronounce anyone a criminal.
Nurudeen told Legit.ng:
“For a court of law to get to that point (of pronouncing an individual a criminal), evidence must have been adduced. By the provision of section 36 (5) of the constitution, ‘everyone charged with a criminal offence shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law’.
“So, the innocence of that person is still going to be intact until the prosecution says otherwise”
He added:
“Nobody has the right in law to call another person a criminal until a court of competent jurisdiction has come to that conclusion. That would be done after trial has been done and after the person has been given the right to defend himself.”
Barrister Jimoh Abiola, the principal counsel of Unique Chambers in Kishi, Oyo state, averred that 'criminal' is a term used for a person who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime.
Barr. Abiola reasoned:
"Anyone that has not been convicted of a crime cannot be said to be a criminal. What we should ask is: was the person convicted? And, where are the records of his conviction?"
Verdict
There is no evidence showing MKO Abiola was into drug trafficking. He was never publicly linked to drugs.
Essentially, there is no record of Nigerian or United States authorities or agencies of any other country arresting or questioning Abiola over drugs.
MKO Abiola’s son slams brother in viral video
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that Abdulmumuni Abiola, son of late MKO Abiola, said his elder brother, Kola Abiola, is not fit to lead Nigeria.
Abdulmumuni lamented that Kola failed to manage Abiola’s empire.
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Source: Legit.ng
