Tinubu, Atiku, and the Trial of Public Opinion -By Aliyu Sulaiman Babasidi

The last 7 days in Nigeria are enough to tell you that the opposition have shifted into second gear in their quest to oust President Tinubu from Aso Villa, with about 120 days to go until the general elections.

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the perennial presidential front-runner and veteran politician in his own right, has been enjoying a pleasant run in the headlines. First, he dangled the promise of reversing the petrol subsidy removal. Then, he promised to reopen our northern borders to Cameroon, Chad, and Niger to resurrect dead trade routes and bring back lost jobs.

There is no denying the fact that these decisions, especially the one of petrol subsidy, has turned the country on its head and plunged millions into multidimensional poverty. The government of the day itself has admitted to these effects and therefore it is no surprise that the announcement or promise by Alhaji Atiku would be received well in the country. What was the APC expecting? That Atiku will align with their unpopular decision during campaign season? Of course not.

Again, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised that the news being spread across social media that President Tinubu is asking an American court not to release records involving an investigation carried out in the 90s about heroine trafficking, emanated from a lobbying firm (Von Batten-Montague-York) sponsored by Alhaji Atiku. After all, it was President Tinubu himself recently said that ‘all is fair in politics’. So we expect to see more from all the political camps in the coming days and weeks, as Tinubu jets out to Europe for what I personally believe to be a political strategy retreat and ‘battery refill’ vacation devoid of Aso Villa visitors.

This man is, for me, the strongest incumbent Nigerian President I have ever seen (or read about) in my 36 years in this world in terms of resources, strategy and power. While it is still a mystery for me as to how a person responsible for the fastest rise in cost of living in Nigeria’s history can win an election by popular votes, I do not see how he will lose this election either. He has not started yet!

But then, these are not the issues here. Tinubu and Atiku’s skirmishes are not things that started today and definitely won’t end today or even after January 2027.

The questions being asked border around the reasons why President Tinubu is asking the court to block the release of the investigation files. If the President’s hands are completely clean, why hire a battery of lawyers to block the release of decades-old law enforcement files? The answer is simple. While the courts may be objective and rational, the court of public opinion is emotional, vindictive and unfiltered.

In navigating the murky waters of statecraft and historic legal battles, President Tinubu’s legal resistance to the unredacted release of these FBI files should not be reflexively misconstrued as a confession written in court papers; rather, it represents a standard defense against the court of public opinion, where raw investigative notes, unverified tips, and stray field claims are easily weaponized as gospel truth by political adversaries.

In administrative law, shielding raw files is merely an effort to prevent trial-by-headline on allegations that never survived the rigorous threshold of a courtroom trial. Yet, acknowledging this legal defense does not erase the stark reality of the 1993 civil forfeiture, which firmly established an undeniable, albeit complex, connection between those bank accounts and illicit narcotics proceeds. In the intricate web of global finance, an individual can easily become an inadvertent conduit for untainted-looking funds, as money laundering operates precisely by disguising origin and intent.

This is a reality that allows federal courts to rightfully seize tainted assets without ever finding the account holder criminally complicit. Tinubu falls into this bucket.

But then, as a democrat that he is, he has no option but to grudgingly admit that Atiku has thrown some hard punches, and retaining his seat until 2031 will clearly require far more than routine political maneuvering.