Why is Karl Von Batten hiding under his red?

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

You said our President was smuggling drugs into America – that is false. Prove it.

You said that our President was CHARGED for drug trafficking in America: this is false. Prove it.

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

In 2003 Michael H. Bonner of the U.S. Consulate in Nigeria wrote to Inspector General of Police Tafa Balogun that an FBI NCIC check on Tinubu was “negative for any criminal arrest record, request, or warrant.”

This is inconsistent with the claim that he was arrested, wanted or convicted in America for drug trafficking.

If you have an indictment or conviction, present the instrument.

The release of a paid memoir by Atiku’s lobbyist does not turn a 1993 civil forfeiture into a criminal verdict.

You persist in spreading falsehoods and perpetuating the lie that President Tinubu was a drug trafficker after being paid to do so by Waziri Abubakar Atiku.

A paid brief can circulate a civil file: It cannot produce an indictment or conviction that the 2003 NCIC audit said wasn’t there.

Following a widely published essay I wrote about you on September 8 entitled “Who is Karl Ikemefuna Von Batten and what is he hiding?” Let me share with you some other home truths in this entry.

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

If ever there was a “Mr. Nobody”, it’s you, yet you try so hard to give the impression that the opposite is true.

You give the false impression of being an honest and credible person, but 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 hide her past and give the false impression of having German ancestry.

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

You have adopted the same modus operandi as your wife and changed it to “Karl Von Batten” in an attempt to hide your past and give the false impression that you are married to a woman of German descent.

There is nothing wrong with changing your name, but in your case you did so in an attempt to deceive others and hide numerous sordid events from your past and to hide the fact that you were the subject of an indictment and criminal conviction in an American court in 2003.

The greatest irony of all of this is that a certified prisoner and criminal like you who uses no less than 9 different names and who falsely claims to have graduated from at least 5 different universities, none of which there is any documentation showing he attended, is accusing others of corruption and of being drug traffickers and criminals.

Once again you insist on introducing yourself as “Dr.” when it does not appear that you have obtained a doctorate from any university in the world or that you are a doctor.

Yours is truly a case study in subterfuge, hypocrisy, criminality and deception.

You are as shady as a second-hand car salesman and as dishonest as the proverbial “fence” used by common criminals.

I don’t have much time for you, but let me share the following words with you before I close the chapter and move on.

The greatest honor you have ever achieved in your life and will probably ever achieve is to have been recognized by me.

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

Your social media rants are invisible to most of us, while the few who have noticed you, like me, consider you nothing more than a mild irritation and often a source of light entertainment.

Your complaints about an old 1993 civil forfeiture case involving bank accounts belonging to President Tinubu are simply an attempt to justify the extortion to which you subjected your client, Atiku.

He paid you $1.2 million to belittle, discredit and destroy President Tinubu and you apparently want to collect more.

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

I guess times have changed and he has changed with them.

In any case, he made his choice despite the Mambilla hydroelectric project
The matter where his ex-wife, Madame Jennifer Douglas Abubakar, received $500,000 from my old friend Laitan Adesanya in what was allegedly a brazen bribe in exchange for a favor from him shows that he has some questions to answer.

The most important thing is that he has assigned a criminal like you to do what is essentially war work against the president of his country and a man who was once his close friend reflects negatively on his judgment which is clearly not what it once was.

I close with the following.

It has been brought to my attention that you have publicly stated that I want to kill or kidnap you.

Your so-called “proof” is a tweet I posted on

I invite all those who are interested to personally read the tweet and consider whether it poses a threat to your life and liberty.

As you are poorly educated and not fully 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 have posted is well off the mark.

For the record, no one is interested in “killing” or “kidnapping” you as you and your fake company claimed on X, so stop bleating like a spineless collaborator and screaming like a disemboweled pig – it’s pathetic.

My job is not to kill people or kidnap them, but my job is to expose liars and scammers who have dedicated their lives to defaming the President and the government I serve and the country I proudly come from.

I operate within the law and intend to continue to do so and will be committed on all fronts for as long as I want.

You can go tell the Pope or whoever if it makes you feel better and rest assured I couldn’t care less.

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

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

Being an American does not give you the right to violate our laws, nor can you silence or intimidate me with your threats and childish nonsense.

Ours is a democratically elected government and a great nation governed and guided by laws and not guided by threats and criminal acts.

There is no conspiracy or plot to kidnap or kill you here and such thoughts and concerns are a figment of your wild and imaginative imagination and a consequence of the misplaced illusion of having some consequence or importance.

Evidently your mind has been confused by the wild conspiracy theories brewing and hatching within it and influencing your thought processes.

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

The irony is that you are the predator and not the victim. You defame the character of others, you insult and criminalize them, you provoke them into a fight, and when they talk back and question your motives and credentials, you start crying like a baby.

You are nothing more than a schoolyard bully incapable of taking what he likes to hand out to others.

You hide under the cover of some shady company and dare to threaten every Nigerian who questions you and responds to your defamatory provocations about

Please note that you are not the only one with access to courts, lawyers and state institutions and understand that you are dealing with a man who comes from 5 generations of Oxbridge University graduates and 3 generations of Cambridge University trained lawyers.

When my great-grandfather studied theology and graduated with a master’s degree from Durham University in 1893, became an Anglican priest and brought Christianity to my hometown, Ile-Ife, in 1897, your people wore grass skirts in the jungle and poured libations at the shrine.

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

As long as you are telling lies, I and every other Nigerian who has your time, have every right to respond to you lawfully 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 away from a fight and I do not bow and tremble before foreigners.

I wish you the best.

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

Shalom.

(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Minister of Aviation, 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)