A federal court in the United States has delivered its final judgment in a tax fraud case involving Abuja-based politician Dumebi Kachikwu, The Peoples Gazette can report. 

Mr Kachikwu was ordered to pay $2.1 million by Judge George Jarrod Hazel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt, documents reviewed by The Gazette said. The January 2023 judgement was the final decision on the tax liability case brought by American authorities against Mr Kachikwu and his wife, Somachi, who was also ordered to pay parts of a separate $56,000 debt to the U.S. treasury. The Gazette previously reported the confiscation of Mr Dumebi’s assets in the U.S. as the case was underway in 2022.

Details of the judgement came as Mr Dumebi returned to public infamy with a campaign to claim ownership of the newly formed political coalition against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Opposition leaders recently adopted the African Democratic Congress to mount a robust challenge to Mr Tinubu, whose reign has been tainted by endemic corruption, abuse of power, and a sudden security collapse. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Nasir El-Rufai, Rotimi Amaechi, Rauf Aregbesola and David Mark are among political leaders now associated with the new coalition, which was unveiled on Wednesday in the nation’s capital.

But no sooner had the alliance been announced than Mr Kachikwu launched a disinformation campaign, using incurious media outlets to spread unfounded claims that he owned the ADC infrastructure. 

But The Gazette’s findings showed Mr Kachikwu was not even a member of the ADC’s national executive panel. His closest association to the party came in the run-up to the 2023 elections, when he used his ill-acquired resources to upstage Kingsley Moghalu as the party’s candidate.

Mr Kachikwu was accused at the time of hijacking the ADC to undermine the party from within as an agent of Mr Tinubu, who was running on the ruling All Progressives Congress’ platform at the time. Mr Kachikwu denied the allegations, but his public statements since the election have largely clarified his loyalty to Mr Tinubu. 

Mr Kachikwu is a familiar guest on Lagos-based TVC, a broadcast network which Mr Tinubu runs with stolen Lagos funds. On Wednesday, he appeared on various political magazine programmes to castigate the opposition coalition as corrupt, geriatric and politically compromised.

“Dumebi Kachikwu is an agent of the president,” a senior ruling party official told The Gazette on Wednesday. “We’re happy to have him.”

Mr Kachikwu first made headlines in the mid-aughts when he was named as the facilitator of an international bribery scheme that led to the jailing of former U.S. lawmaker William Jefferson. The nefarious iGate-NDTV broadband deal impugned Nigeria’s reputation, anti-corruption officials said at the time.

It was unclear when he returned to Nigeria, settling in Abuja, where he cast a general reputation as a notorious wheeler-dealer. His brother, Ibe Kachikwu, publisher of fiendish magazines, served as the petroleum minister (state) under President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Kachikwu, who runs multimedia platform Roots TV, told The Gazette about his regular visits to the U.S., which he said were often posted on social media. But no such posts were found on his Instagram and Twitter pages.

He, however, sidestepped questions about his association with Mr Tinubu and the $2.1 million judgment outstanding against him in the U.S. 

A presidential spokesman declined to comment on whether Mr Kachikwu had any ties to the administration. The president has long been known to plant agents in opposition parties. 

In 2023, he used Nyesom Wike to sabotage the Peoples Democratic Party by plunging the party into perennial crises. Mr Wike was subsequently rewarded with a ministerial position, which he has mindlessly exploited to loot public assets for his family. Many of the crises remained unresolved until Mr Abubakar and others decided to join the new ADC coalition to maximise their prospects for 2027. 

A spokesman for the PDP section of the coalition said the new alliance would be focusing on ousting the APC from power in 2027, rather than the ruling party’s antics. 

“Nigerians know the antics of the APC,” Debo Ologunagba said. “We’re just going to focus on ending the madness that is APC in 2027.”