Why is Karl Von Batten hiding under his bed?, By Femi Fani-Kayode

Ikemefuna Okeke, Karl Von Batten, Karl Marx, George Edward, Karl ME Okeke or whichever of your numerous names you choose to call yourself this week, consider the following.

You said our President was SMUGGLING drugs into America: this is false. Prove it.

You said our President was INDICTED for smuggling drugs in America: this is false. Prove it.

You said our President was CONVICTED for drug smuggling in America: this is false. Prove it.

In 2003 Michael H Bonner of the American Consulate in Nigeria wrote Inspector General of Police Tafa Balogun that an FBI NCIC check on Tinubu was “negative for any criminal arrest records, wants, or warrants.”

That is incompatible with the claim that he was arrested, wanted or convicted in America for drug smuggling.

If you have an indictment or a conviction, produce the instrument.

Circulating a paid brief from Atiku’s lobbyist does not turn a 1993 civil forfeiture into a criminal verdict.

You insist on peddling the falsehood and perpetuating the lie that President Tinubu was a drug smuggler after being paid to do so by Waziri Abubakar Atiku.

A paid brief can circulate a civil file: it cannot manufacture an indictment or a conviction that the 2003 NCIC check said was not there.

In continuation of a widely published essay I wrote about you on 8th September titled, “Who is Karl Ikemefuna Von Batten and What is He Hiding?” permit me to share a few more home truths with you in this contribution.

You are an inconsequential figure who is not known or recognised in notable circles anywhere in the world, including your adopted nation, America.

If there was ever a “Mr Nobody” it is you, yet you try so hard to give the impression that the contrary is the case.

You give the false impression that you are an upstanding and credible individual, yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider your wife whose original name was Kathy Grier which, for reasons best known to herself, she changed to Liz Blazevich.

A few years later she once again changed her name from Liz Blazevich to Elizabeth Von Batten in an attempt to give the impression that she has German ancestry.

Your name was Ikemefuna Okeke, which is an Igbo name, and which confirms your Nigerian ancestry.

You adopted the same modus operandi as your wife and changed it to ‘Karl Von Batten’ in an attempt to give the impression that you are married to a woman with German ancestry.

There is nothing wrong with changing names but in your case, it appears that you did so in an attempt to cover up the fact that you were the subject of an indictment by an American court in 2003.

The greatest irony of it all is that you, who use no less than nine different names and claim to have graduated from at least five different universities, none of which there is any record to prove, are accusing others of corruption and of being drug smugglers and criminals.

Again you insist on introducing yourself as ‘Dr’ when there is no record of you earning a doctorate degree from any University in the world or of being a medical practitioner.

I do not have much time for you but permit me to share the following words with you before closing your chapter and moving on.

The greatest honour you have ever attained in your life and that you are ever likely to attain is to have been acknowledged by me.

You lack the relevance or seriousness to attract any significant attention from the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Your rants on social media are invisible to most of us, whilst the few that have noticed you, like me, consider you to be nothing more than a mild irritation and oftentimes a source of light entertainment.

Your lamentations about an old 1993 civil forfeiture case involving bank accounts which belonged to President Tinubu is simply an attempt to justify the payment you have subjected your client, Atiku, to.

He has paid you $1.2 million to diminish, discredit and destroy President Tinubu and evidently you want to collect more.

How you managed to fool him I don’t know because the old Atiku that I knew 23 years ago, when we served in the same government under President Olusegun Obasanjo, was as sharp as nails and would have seen through you and saw you for what you are within seconds.

Whatever the case, he made his choice even though the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project matter, in which his former wife, Madam Jennifer Douglas Abubakar, was given $500,000 by my old friend, Laitan Adesanya, in what was allegedly a brazen bribe in return for a favour from him, proves that he has some questions to answer.

Most importantly his commissioning of someone like you to do what is essentially a hatchet job on the President of his country and a man that was once his dear friend, reflects badly on his judgement, which is clearly not what it once used to be.

I close with the following.

It has been brought to my attention that you have publicly alleged that I want to either murder or kidnap you.

Your so-called ‘evidence’ is a tweet that I posted on X on 20th September, which, since you saw it, has caused you to hide under your bed in trepidation and resulted in your walking around with your knickers in a twist.

I urge all those who are interested to read the tweet themselves and consider whether it constitutes a threat to your life and liberty.

Given the fact that you are barely educated but not entirely literate, I accept that your English or understanding of the English language may not be that good, but by any stretch of the imagination, your interpretation and understanding of what I posted is well off the mark.

For the records, nobody is interested in “killing” or “kidnapping” you, as you and your company have alleged on X, so stop bleating like a spineless quisling: it is pathetic.

I am not in the business of killing people or of kidnapping them, but I am in the business of exposing liars and fraudsters who have dedicated their lives to smearing the President and government that I serve, and the country from which I proudly come.

I operate within the law and fully intend to continue to do so and I will engage you on all fronts as long as I choose.

You can go and report that to the Pope or anyone else if it makes you feel better and rest assured that I couldn’t care less.

You, like everyone else, are accountable before the law and this is especially so when you violate our Cybercrime Act and use social media to spread defamatory lies and falsehood about our government, leaders and people.

Other than to report you to the relevant security agencies in our country for your continued infractions, I wish you no harm and if you have done no wrong you surely have nothing to fear from our courts or our justice system.

Being American does not confer on you the right to violate our laws and neither can you silence or intimidate me with your threats and puerile hogwash.

Ours is a democratically-elected government and a great nation that is governed and guided by laws, and not driven by threats and thuggery.

There is no conspiracy or plot to abduct or kill you here and such thoughts and concerns are a figment of your wild and fanciful imagination and a consequence of the misplaced delusion that you are of any consequence or importance.

Your mind has evidently been befuddled by the wild conspiracy theories which brew and hatch within it and which have affected your thought processes.

No matter what the strange voices in your head and your delusions of grandeur lead you to believe, take your medication and kindly remember that you are not James Bond but just a Washington-based lobbyist who is given to name-dropping and who spends his time threatening and insulting every Nigerian who disagrees with or opposes him on social media.

The irony is that you are the predator and not the victim. You cast aspertions on the character of others, insult and criminalise them, provoke them into a row and when they respond and question your motives and credentials, you start crying like a little child.

You are nothing but a school yard bully who is incapable of taking what he delights in dishing out to others.

You hide under the cover of some firm and dare to threaten every Nigerian that questions you and responds to your slanderous provocations on X with court cases in America and reports to the American Congress, the American Senate, the American State Department, President Donald Trump and the FBI, after goading and daring them into a fight after which you present yourself as the innocent victim.

Kindly take note that you are not the only one with access to courts, lawyers and the institutions of state, and understand that you are dealing with a man that comes from five generations of Oxbridge-level university graduates and three generations of Cambridge University-trained lawyers.

When my great grandfather studied theology and graduated with a Masters degree from Durham University in 1893, became an Anglican priest and took Christianity to my hometown, Ile-Ife in 1897, yours were wearing grass skirts in the jungle and pouring libations at the shrine.

You cannot intimidate me with anyone or anything, and my fear is reserved for God alone. Know this and know peace.

As long as you tell lies I, and any other Nigerian that have your time, have every right to respond to you in a lawful manner and I will do so whenever and however I deem fit.

Unlike you, I am proud of my nation and my heritage, I do not suffer from low self-esteem, I do not have a chip on my shoulder, I do not run from a fight and I do not bow and tremble before foreigners.

I wish you the very best.

Lest I forget please send my best regards to your husband, Mrs Elizabeth Von Batten, and assure her of my highest regards.

Shalom.

Femi Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Minister of Aviation, the Ambassador-Designate of Nigeria to South Africa Lesotho and Estawani, the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba of Joga Orile, the Aare Ajagunla of Otun Ekiti, and a legal practitioner.