Lawyer Aloy Ejimakor has said that President Bola Tinubu’s US fund forfeiture raises moral question but it’s not criminal.

In an opinion piece, Ejimakor stated that his knowledge as one who was trained and practiced law in the US for several years, exposed him to instances were some people forfeited some money and lived happily ever after as unconvicted persons.

He stated that under U.S. law, the distinction between a criminal conviction and a civil asset forfeiture is foundational and statutorily distinguished from each other.

He noted that the certified record of the pertinent proceedings in the Tinubu case show that the 1993 forfeiture of $460,000 from bank accounts linked to President Tinubu was strictly a civil in rem proceeding, not a criminal in personam conviction.

“Strictly governed by 18 U.S.C. § 981, civil forfeiture targets property based on its connection to alleged unlawful conduct, rather than establishing personal criminal liability. It is under this law that the US government (in United States v. Funds in Account No. 263226700 et al., No. 93 C 4483 (N.D. Ill.) filed a CIVIL complaint directly against the Tinubu funds or bank accounts, thus resulting in a compromised settlement without a judicial finding of guilt.

“Contrast with the very next provision, to wit: 18 U.S.C. § 982 which specifically deals with CRIMINAL forfeiture and thus requires a finding of guilt and a personal conviction. Truth be told, this is not what happened in the Tinubu matter.

“But even in the US, the matter was controversial until 1996 when, in United States v. Ursery, 518 U.S. 267 (1996), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that civil in rem forfeitures are civil, non-criminal remedial actions against property, distinct from criminal punishment which is considered in personam. It was under this principle that the Tinubu funds were considered property, connected to alleged unlawful conduct, but sans criminal liability,” Ejimakor said.

He further stated that while critics are free to leverage the underlying allegations of narcotics proceeds to argue moral turpitude or fitness for public office, the legal reality remains distinct, and that is: Tinubu was never charged, tried, or convicted of a crime. “Therefore, conflating his civil asset forfeiture with a criminal guilt misinterprets statutory mechanics and the binding judicial precedents on point.

“And this is just an unbiased restatement of the black letter law, not any support for President Tinubu. After all, his men harshly detained me for several days in October last year for allegedly participating in the #FreeNnamdiKanu protest, for which I am still on trial that comes up on 31st July,” Ejimakor said.