Nigerians still wait with bated breath a US Court pronouncement about President Bola Tinubu's alleged involvement in drug related offences in the United States. Tension around the case increased after a United States Congressman Ronny Jackson disclosed that Nigeria is a new hub for South American drug traffickers. Jackson made the remark in a private chat with Von Batten Montague York, a highly reputed advocacy firm which works in Washington for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar after the latter tendered Justice Department papers to the US Court following the insistence of Judge Beryl Howell. Von Batten Montague York made the Congressman's warning public, noting that the comment should be of concern to both Nigerians and Americans because the former should be known as the giant of Africa not as a center for international drug traffic. Atiku has been relentless in his allegations that Tinubu had been involved in heroin trafficking during his stay in the United States. Since Tinubu took office in 2023, reports from United States and United Nations have described Nigeria as a transit point and a market for cocaine heroin and methamphetamine. A Congressional Research Service report updated in July 2026 upheld that allegation. Two months prior in May 2026 Nigerian drug agents smashed what they called the largest meth lab ever found in the country, reportedly seizing more than 2.4 tons of meth and chemicals worth hundreds of millions of dollars in an Ogun State forest and arrested Nigerian and Mexican cooks. The next month (June) the agents hit another forest lab in Oyo State and arrested a Mexican specialist with some local partners. BBC and United States Africa Command had earlier reported that Mexican groups including Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation have been sending meth makers into Africa. Four of five labs counted in the last year were located in Nigeria. For years West Africa was believed mainly to be a corridor for cocaine moving from South America toward Europe. New findings however indicate that cartels are now also cooking drugs on Nigerian soil. Mohammed Buba Marwa, head of NDLEA recently disclosed that the gangs hire South American specialists to set up factories inside rural forests. Von Batten Montague York says the new traffic is connected to the old Chicago case in 1993 involving Tinubu in which United States officials took 460,000 dollars from a bank account belonging to Tinubu after a case linked the money to a heroin network that moved drugs into Chicago between 1988 and 1991. However, Tinubu was never charged or convicted and his lawyers insist it was a civil litigation. The FBI and several other agencies were handed an August 28 2026 deadline to give Judge Howell private papers on those files and to explain why some should stay hidden. Relentless, Von Batten Montague York is now asking the US Congress whether South American cartels are now shifting their operational base to Nigeria because they are aware of the old allegations around the President? It is a question many Nigerians also want answers to. ... with agency reports

Posted: 2months ago

Author: Editor in Chief

Current date: 18 October 2026