Pablo Tinubu? Pt.1.
Historically Speaking 4.
On July 11th, 2013, the first season of Orange Is The New Black (OITNB) was released on Netflix, becoming the second major series released by the platform.
It went on to garner over 30 nominations in its first season, winning 3 Emmys and positioning Netflix as the prominent streaming platform that we know and love (?) today.
For those who haven’t seen it, basically, it follows the prison journey of a young white woman who goes to jail for being part of a drug trafficking ring.
And for those who have seen it and don’t know, it’s actually based on a book also named Orange Is The New Black, and it’s written by the actual woman who goes to jail, Piper Kerman.
Piper Kerman was part of an international drug trafficking ring. She was recruited by her girlfriend, Catherine Cleary Wolters and she helped move money across Europe and the US.
Now, the drug trafficking ring was run by a West African drug lord who goes by the name “Alaji”.
He was mostly based in the république du Bénin, and in the book Piper details how Catherine was flown to Cotonou to do some voodoo stuff before being integrated into the ring.
Catherine had her own mini-cartel, and their job was basically to get the drugs and money moved safely from their origin to their destination.
“Alaji” is mentioned only a few times in the book, and is never mentioned in the TV series, so it’s easy for that name to become very negligible.
But if you are a curious cat like me, a deep dive will reveal to you that the “Alaji” in the book is none other than…….drumrolll pleaseeee
Our very own former PDP senator, financier of the Jonathan presidential campaign in 2011, and a former PDP gubernatorial aspirant.
The one and only, Alhaji Buruji Kashamu.
Kashamu ran a drug trafficking ring that spanned 4 continents and more than 10 cities, including Lagos, Cotonou, Paris, Bangkok and Chicago.
Hold on to that name “Chicago”, because it will come up a lot in this article.
Drugs are profitable, highly profitable. Nigerians love profits. Oya put two and two together
Because the story doesn’t end there.
Kashamu might have been an international druglord, but trust me, he wasn’t the biggest fish in the pond.
In the 80s/90s, Chicago was battling a serious addiction crisis. In fact, there’s a highway known today in Chicago as the Heroin Highway, where people come from as far as outside the state to get their “fix”.
The Herrera family of Mexico was the sole provider of heroin in the 70s/ early 80s, but around 1985, the US government succeeded in taking out the family.
So there was a massive shortage of heroin on the streets of Chicago.
Addicts were running mad looking for supply, people were dying because things were being sold as “heroin”, the prices were jacked up because heroin became gold. It was a full-on crisis.
The Nigerians saw what was going on, and said, “hmmm…..this is a business opportunity right here”
So they went to Southeast Asia, specifically Thailand and Cambodia, and went to source high-quality heroin that could scatter the brain.
When I say high-quality heroin, I mean high-quality heroin. Heroin that would make you sell your father’s house.
The heroin was of such quality that a test done by the DEA on a shipment seized showed purity of about 80%.
Alright, I am beginning to sound like an addict. Let me scale back.
Nigerians brought this SEA (South East Asian) heroin to Chicago, and once it landed on the streets, it became a madness.
Italian, Colombian and Mexican mafias watched in horror as the Nigerians took over their business. People were flocking to the Nigerian heroin in droves, selling their underwear to get a fix.
The Nigerians were business-savvy, and they knew how their communities worked, so they operated under the radar for a long time.
First of all, they didn’t “cut” the heroin.
Now, if you’ve seen a lot of drug-trafficking series or movies, you know that these cartels have a habit of “cutting” the drugs, which basically means adding other stuff to increase the quantity, reducing the quality in the process.
The Nigerians didn’t do this; they just sold it directly to the wholesalers. And trust me when an addict is shooting up heroin with 80% purity, best believe they are coming back for more.
Secondly, they brought in the youngsters. Cousins, sons, and even daughters were brought in to fill the generational gaps. These young ones negotiated with the street gangs like the Gangster Disciples, who were literally flocking to take a slice of the pie.
Thirdly, they moved from using black couriers in transporting the heroin to using pristine, clean white people, like Piper’s girlfriend, Catherine.
These white, pristine people, who had never had as much as a parking ticket, were less likely to be stopped and searched by a policeman. So, much of the drug passed through without so much as a hitch.
Fourthly, they used smaller airports to bring in their drugs.
They weren’t using JFK airport in New York or Denver International Airport…..nah nah nah.
Instead, they would land in a small town 50 kilometres from the main city in an airport that only saw 2 flights every month, and was barely functioning.
O’Hare’s airport in Chicago was considered a “safe” airport too, because these traffickers were in cahoots with some of the customs officials.
They had a very intense transportation network.
A combination of all these meant they went under the radar, and the authorities just couldn’t get them. They were poised to become a menace, and menace they became.
The SEA heroin fueled an addiction crisis so bad that the Chicago authorities had to move from arresting traffickers to trying to provide safe needles for the addicts.
HIV/AIDS was rampant then, and authorities were concerned that addicts would get infected by reusing needles. So they basically open hubs for addicts to come and get fresh syringes.
I need you to understand how crazy this is. Imagine a policeman who should be arresting you for using, giving you a fresh syringe.
The Nigerians were making a lot of money, and that’s a good thing, right?
Well……when you have someone like Jumoke Majekodunmi running a 26 million dollar heroin ring right from her boutique named The Women's Affair, it suddenly becomes hard to “move” this money.
How do you explain that your boutique, named The Women's Affair, was making about 26 million dollars from a crusty neighbourhood in Chicago?
You don’t.
And so, you need accounting masterminds that can help you launder the money successfully.
Cue in our very own Balablu
Usually, I would start his biography with “Born so so so and so”
But the strange thing about this man is how much of his life is shrouded in absolute secrecy and vagueness.
We don’t know his birth name, we don’t know his origins, and we are not even sure where he had his basic education.
A quick search on Wikipedia would tell you that he attended St. John’s Primary School, Aroloya, then Children Home School in Ibadan.
However, the man himself, when filling his INEC nomination form in 1999 omitted his primary and secondary schools, instead deciding to jump straight into listing his university, Chicago State University.
He did the same in 2023, only deciding to list his BSc certification.
Now, for my safety, everything mentioned here is allegedly, because if they carry me and disappear me, you guys won’t fight for me.
So yes…
Anyways, the first 20 years (ish) of his life are relatively unknown. All we know is that he moved to Lagos to stay with his adopted mother, Abibatu Mogaji. It is claimed that this is where our protagonist assumes the name Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In 1975, he moved to Chicago, attended Richard Daley College for his associate degree, then proceeded to Chicago State University, where he got his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration in 1979.
He sort of leads a regular life after that, and his story becomes more trackable.
It’s important to note that Tinubu is a very intelligent man, and he graduated on the dean’s list of his school, with a cumulative CGPA of 3.54.
When you are that brilliant, you are sought out by top firms, so Tinubu’s early career saw him working for Delloite & Authur Andersen.
While at Deloitte, he was a consultant for the Saudi oil company, Aramco, and here is where he claims his big break came from.
He claims that after working on a single on-site deal with the Saudi-owned company, he was given a bonus of $850,000 for the job he did.
Now, Tinubu was earning an estimated $23,000 per annum, and according to ChatGPT, this is typically what a junior accountant would earn in the 80s.
I have seen enough Industry and Billions and Succession to know that $850,000 is a lot to give an employee as a bonus in 1985.
Unless you are involved in some illicit deal that doesn’t make sense.
$850,000 adjusted for inflation today is $3.34 million.
3 million dollars for a junior accountant less than 5 years into his career, is a lot of money. Damn, you have to have the brain of Albert Einstein to be able to command that amount.
Now, it gets even more confusing because Tinubu claims that after receiving that money in his account, he had a balance of 1.8 million dollars. For someone who earns 23,000 dollars, this does not add up.
Unless he was having sex with his manager, I don’t see how that is possible.
But then, the story gets interesting.
Remember I told you to hold on to the name “Chicago”?
Well, sit tight my beautiful audience, because you will soon understand why.
Part 2 comes out next week.
I had to break this into two parts because it was too long to fit into one article. Expect part 2 next week
The amount of research that went into this piece ehn, you guys will soon start paying.
Right as the gist was getting hot
I can't wait for the Netflix documentary/series ten years from now after some of these players are long and gone.