Tinubu was declared the winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
An advocacy group, Centre for Reform and Public Advocacy, has berated the US government for congratulating Nigeria’s president-elect, Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu was declared the winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
The group in a statement signed by its Public Relations Officer, Okechukwu Ifeanyi, said the US government hurriedly congratulated Tinubu “despite his fraudulent victory because the US plans to use him as a stooge for the next four years.”
The group recalled that Tinubu was implicated in a drug trafficking case in Chicago in 1992 and that he eventually forfeited the sum of $460,000 to the US authorities.
According to the advocacy group, it is disgraceful that despite the shoddy and fraudulent election that was conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and despite the report from US and EU observers, the US government went ahead to recognise Tinubu as president-elect.
“This is the same country that in May 2018 condemned Venezuela’s election as ‘an insult to democracy’ as low voter turnout looked to have spoiled what President Nicolás Maduro had promised would be a great ‘fiesta’ of democracy.”
The group said in a tweet posted shortly before the voting exercise closed on the presidential election day, “the US Mission to the United Nations indicated it would reject the result”.
“Yet, the US has gone ahead to congratulate Tinubu despite the 2023 election also being the worst since the return of democracy in Nigeria.
“The election witnessed a 27% voter turnout as only 25.2 million people voted. Venezuela witnessed a turnout of 46.07% in 2018, but the US still dismissed the voter turnout as low,” the group said.
It pointed out that in the presidential election, the electoral commission failed to upload results from polling units in real-time as stipulated by law, adding that the election also witnessed voter intimidation and suppression.
The group said that “in Lagos where Tinubu reigns as godfather, thugs were seen at various polling units in Surulere, Eti-Osa, Oshodi/Isolo and several other places openly threatening to kill anyone who was not willing to vote for Tinubu and his APC party”.
“A lady in Surulere, Jennifer Ifidi Bima, was stabbed in the face for insisting on protecting her vote. Her blood-stained ballot paper is evidence of her resolve to cast her ballot.
“In Rivers State, which has been nicknamed Rivers of blood, voting was done by gunboat diplomacy. It was either vote for the APC or get shot in the process. Despite overwhelming evidence and videos circulating on social media, the US has decided to legitimize this sham of an election by congratulating its beneficiary. This is disgraceful.
“Before the election, American authorities had threatened to slam a visa ban on enablers of violence. But this act of congratulating the beneficiary of the violence has already negated any sort of visa ban that the US is planning to impose on anyone.
“One even wonders the efficacy of such visa bans when the US refuses to reveal the identities of the victims of the so-called visa bans. This is the very height of hypocrisy since the US has been revealing the identities of Russian officials it has hit with visa restrictions.
“It is obvious that the US is seeking to convert Tinubu to its stooge. The US has more than enough dirt on him, which could be used in blackmailing him. Nigeria’s sovereignty has been handed over to a foreign power with Tinubu as its proxy - the new form of neo-colonialism.
“Even a ranking member of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Senator Jim Risch, had expressed strong reservations about the rush of his own country in embracing Nigeria's election results.”
The group quoted Senator Risch as saying, "The ongoing electoral process in Nigeria is widely viewed as deeply flawed by election observers and many Nigerians. It is disappointing to see the (US) administration rush to embrace the result while the full picture of what occurred during this electoral process is yet to be seen."
“That the US, which has a dossier on the drug-tainted president-elect of Nigeria, was in a hurry to congratulate him, is only a confirmation that they need him to do their bidding,” it added.