Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
There are lies that require elaborate investigation to expose. And then there are lies so thoroughly demolished by publicly available facts that the only question they raise is not whether they are false, but what manner of man tells them.
Before we get to the lie itself, let us ask the question every hungry Nigerian, every petrol queue survivor, every parent who cannot pay school fees deserves answered: what exactly is the significance of the perverted story Tinubu is telling about Atiku Abubakar and the Yar’Adua political movement?
One hundred and thirty-nine million Nigerians are below the poverty line. Fourteen million fell into poverty in 2024 alone. Petrol costs above N1,000 per litre. The naira has collapsed. National debt has grown by 65 percent in 18 months. And the man responsible for all of this is busy fabricating political genealogies from three decades ago.
The answer is as damning as the lie itself. Tinubu is not reminiscing. He is campaigning. He knows that in 2027, against Atiku Abubakar’s authentic record and authentic connections, his governance catastrophe cannot survive honest comparison. So he does what he has always done. He rewrites the past to escape judgment for the present.
In the video, Tinubu claimed he was in the Yar’Adua political circle before Atiku. That Atiku met him with Yar’Adua, arriving into a space Tinubu already occupied. That he was the established figure and Atiku the latecomer.
It is a lie. You need only one tool to demolish it. You need a calendar.
Because while Atiku was in 1989 serving Nigeria with distinction, feared enough by the military that they blocked his promotion, Bola Tinubu was accumulating $460,000 that he would later forfeit to the American government as proceeds of narcotics trafficking, per a signed consent judgment in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
That is not a political allegation. That is a legal fact bearing Tinubu’s own signature. While Atiku was building Nigeria’s democratic foundations, Tinubu was settling drug money cases in America. And this man claims he was in the Yar’Adua circle before Atiku.
While Atiku served Nigeria with distinction in 1989, feared by the military and recruited personally by Yar’Adua, Tinubu was accumulating $460,000 later forfeited to the United States as narcotics proceeds. This is the man who claims he was in politics before Atiku.
THE CLAIM AND THE TIMELINE.
Shehu Musa Yar’Adua founded the People’s Democratic Movement in 1989 and immediately began building a national structure, personally recruiting established figures as state coordinators across Nigeria’s then 19 states. That year, he travelled to Atiku Abubakar’s Abuja office and recruited him as one of those senior figures. From 1989, Atiku was an active pillar of the Yar’Adua movement.
Bola Tinubu did not enter politics until 1992, when he joined the Social Democratic Party under the People’s Front faction and contested for a Lagos senatorial seat. Before 1992, he had no political involvement of any kind. He was not a PDM member, not a coordinator, not present in any meeting or structure within that movement.
Atiku: 1989. Tinubu: 1992. Three years. Tinubu’s claim is not a matter of interpretation. It is a factual impossibility. You cannot precede a man who arrived three years before you.
Atiku entered the Yar’Adua circle in 1989. Tinubu entered it in 1992. Three years separate them. The dates are not negotiable.
WHO ATIKU WAS WHEN YAR’ADUA CAME TO HIM.
In 1989, Atiku’s service record was so exceptional that the Babangida administration publicly announced his appointment as Comptroller-General of Customs. Senior military officers from Adamawa on the Armed Forces Ruling Council moved to block it. Their reason: he was too young, and already a political problem for them.
The military does not fear nobodies. In 1989, before his first election or public office, the Nigerian military establishment considered Atiku significant enough to intervene against his advancement. That is the man Yar’Adua travelled to recruit. Yar’Adua went to Atiku’s office. Atiku was not arriving at anyone’s door. He was the prize being courted.
WHO COMMANDED LAGOS WHEN TINUBU ARRIVED IN 1992.
When Tinubu finally joined the Yar’Adua structure in 1992, he was not even the senior figure in his own state. The commanding presence of the People’s Front in Lagos was Chief Dapo Sarumi, patriarch of the Primrose Group, the organised Yar’Adua formation in Lagos.
Chief Sarumi was a distinguished technocrat from Epe in Lagos State, deeply networked, politically formidable, and the man whose credibility made things move in Lagos. He had contested the 1991 SDP governorship primary under the same People’s Front platform. He was the centre of gravity. Tinubu was a participant in Sarumi’s machine.
Nationally, Atiku preceded Tinubu by three years. In Lagos, Sarumi was his senior. Tinubu was not before anyone in that movement. He came after almost everyone, carrying a legal history in America that no legitimate political movement would have welcomed had it been known.
Chief Dapo Sarumi is alive today, in the United States, reportedly in ill health. He is a living witness. Let Tinubu make his claims before Chief Sarumi.
In Lagos, Chief Dapo Sarumi commanded the Yar’Adua structure. Tinubu was a participant in Sarumi’s machine. He was not before anyone. He came after almost everyone.
A MAN WHO REWRITES EVERYTHING.
This is not the first rewrite. Tinubu has submitted different dates of birth to different institutions. He has never resolved the questions surrounding his university certificate. He has denied legal proceedings in American courts whose documents bear his signature. He claimed credit for Lagos projects that predate his governorship.
The pattern is total. Wherever the record diminishes him or elevates someone else, he revises it. He was always the founder, always the senior figure, always there first. This time he is rewriting the founding history of Nigerian democracy. The audacity is staggering. The refutation is effortless.
“Wherever the record diminishes Tinubu or elevates someone else, he rewrites it. Always the founder, always the senior figure, always there first. The record contradicts him every single time. This time it speaks from two continents.”
THE RECORD THAT MATTERS MOST
While Tinubu fabricates political genealogies, 220 million Nigerians live in the present he has created. Urban poverty has nearly doubled, from 18 to over 31 percent. Fourteen million fell into poverty in 2024 alone. The naira crashed from N450 to over N1,500 to the dollar. Petrol rose from N195 to above N1,000. National debt grew 65 percent in 18 months. He claimed $30 billion in FDI. The NBS recorded less than half a billion dollars in actual inflows.
Atiku’s record as Vice President from 1999 to 2007 needs no fabrication. Telecoms liberalisation enabled 180 million subscriber registrations. External debt was eliminated. GDP growth averaged above 7 percent annually. A good record does not need to be invented.
A man who lies about history has no present worth defending. A man who forfeited narcotics money to the United States government and then denied the court documents bearing his signature is incapable of the honesty governance requires. Nigerians are paying for that incapacity every day.
TWO MEN, ONE ERA, TWO RECORDS.
In 1989, Yar’Adua personally travelled to Atiku’s Abuja office to recruit him as a founding pillar of the movement that would birth Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. In those same years, between 1989 and 1993, Tinubu was accumulating $460,000 that an American federal court classified as narcotics proceeds. He signed the forfeiture himself.
He did not enter politics until 1992. When he did, he joined a Lagos structure commanded by Chief Dapo Sarumi, in a movement Atiku had anchored for three years.
Tinubu was not in the Yar’Adua circle before Atiku. Atiku was in it three years before Tinubu arrived. What Tinubu was doing in those three years has been answered, not by political opponents, but by a federal court in the United States of America.
In 2027, Nigerians will judge by who has the integrity and vision to rebuild a nation that a congenital liar, with a narcotics forfeiture on his American legal record, has brought to its knees. On that question, the answer is already written.
TWO MEN, TWO PATHS TO WEALTH.
The contrast between these two men is not limited to politics. It extends to the most fundamental question in public life: how did you make your money?
Atiku Abubakar has answered that question openly and in detail. He received a Federal Staff Housing loan. He used it to build a house at GRA Yola. He rented that house to Gongola State Government, which had just been created. He used the rent proceeds to build additional houses.
Those houses gave him his first millions. He then purchased shares in an oil and gas logistics company called Nicotes, which later became Intels Nigeria Limited. From that investment, his wealth grew substantially. Every step of that journey is accountable, sequential and rooted in legitimate enterprise.
This is the wealth record of a man who worked, saved, invested and built. It is the record of someone who understood that private sector growth and public service could coexist without corruption.
Now ask the same question of Bola Tinubu. How did he make his money?
He has never provided a coherent answer. What the public record does show is this: in 1993, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Tinubu signed a consent agreement forfeiting $460,000 to the American government. The forfeiture was explicitly connected to narcotics proceeds. He did not contest it. He signed it. The money was surrendered.
This is not a foundation on which legitimate wealth is built. This is a foundation on which questions are permanently planted. And those questions have never been answered, because Tinubu has spent thirty years ensuring they are never properly asked.
One man built his wealth through housing, investment and enterprise. The other forfeited drug money to a foreign government and has refused to account for the rest. The Nigerian people deserve to know the difference.
Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General,
The Narrative Force
