Aloy Ejimakor, lead counsel to detained IPOB leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has stated that President Bola Tinubu's 1993 forfeiture of $460,000 in the United States was a civil, not criminal, matter under US law. Ejimakor, who has practiced law in the US, explained that the case was handled as a civil in rem proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 981, targeting the funds themselves rather than establishing personal criminal guilt. Court records show the US government filed a civil complaint against the accounts in the case United States v. Funds in Account No. 263226700 et al., No. 93 C 4483 (N.D. Ill.), leading to a settlement without any criminal charge, trial, or conviction.
He contrasted this with criminal forfeiture under 18 U.S.C. § 982, which requires a conviction, noting that no such finding was made in Tinubu's case. The 1996 US Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Ursery, 518 U.S. 267 (1996), affirmed that civil forfeitures are remedial actions against property, not punitive measures against individuals. Ejimakor maintained that while the forfeiture may raise moral or political questions, it does not equate to criminal culpability. He emphasized that critics can argue about Tinubu's fitness for office based on the allegations, but legally, there was no conviction.
Ejimakor clarified that his legal interpretation is not an endorsement of Tinubu, whom he criticized for the ongoing detention of Kanu and his own arrest in October last year over a #FreeNnamdiKanu protest. His trial in that case is set for July 31.
The same legal argument used to separate Tinubu's forfeiture from criminal guilt is now made by a lawyer whose detention under Tinubu's administration remains unresolved. This contrast raises a practical question about the consistency of legal principle when applied to power and dissent.
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