By Dansu Peter
A riveting account has emerged from Babafemi Ojudu, a former senator and journalist, detailing how President Bola Tinubu played a pivotal role in exposing the corruption of Nigeria's former military ruler, Sani Abacha, during the 1990s. Ojudu, in a recent interview, recounted how Tinubu’s secret recordings of a Jewish lawyer revealed the extent of Abacha’s looting.
At the time, Tinubu was living in exile in the United Kingdom, and Ojudu was working as a journalist. According to Ojudu, Tinubu orchestrated a meeting with a Jewish lawyer who possessed critical information about Abacha's embezzlement and those complicit in the scheme.
“The lawyer disclosed how Abacha was diverting public funds and identified key collaborators, including the Chagoury brothers,” Ojudu shared. “As a journalist, I was thrilled to be in the room listening to such revelations.”
What stood out, however, was Tinubu’s calculated move to secretly record the conversation. Ojudu narrated Tinubu’s strategy: “He told me, ‘Don’t worry, I had a tape recorder hidden. When I went to the bathroom, I flipped the tape to the other side and flushed the toilet to mask the sound.’”
Despite Tinubu’s initial reluctance to release the recordings, Ojudu managed to obtain the tape and publish the explosive revelations. “Tinubu was asleep when I took the tape. Later, he called, asking where it was. When I told him I planned to publish it, he warned me I could be killed. I told him, ‘Let them kill me; I will publish it.’”
Back in Nigeria, Ojudu and his team authenticated the information and ran the story, causing a national uproar that rattled Abacha’s regime.
Reflecting on the incident, Ojudu praised Tinubu's strategic mind: “He is a strategist who finds solutions no matter the odds. I admire working with such people.”
Ojudu shared these revelations while discussing his new book, *Adventures of a Guerrilla Journalist*, underscoring the daring efforts that challenged Abacha’s dictatorship.
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