The claim, made on social media by a Washington firm on Atiku Abubakar’s payroll, adds a new front to a bitter fight over decades-old FBI files as Nigeria’s 2027 election approaches.
WASHINGTON — A Washington lobbying firm that has spent months pressing for the release of American law enforcement records about Nigeria’s president said on Wednesday that its managing partner had been offered $3 million and a secret meeting in London to abandon the effort, an allegation that it said it would refer to the Justice Department and the F.B.I.
The firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C., made the claim in a post on X, saying the approach had come “a few days ago” from “a highly placed individual whom we have been informed is connected to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.” It did not name the individual, produce the communications or offer evidence of the person’s ties to Mr. Tinubu.
“We believe these offers were an attempt to persuade Dr. Von Batten to end our campaign concerning President Tinubu’s alleged heroin-trafficking records,” the firm wrote, referring to Karl Von Batten, its managing partner. It said Mr. Von Batten had refused, preserved copies of the exchanges and contacted the campaign of Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president who is Mr. Tinubu’s chief rival, “to determine the nature of the individual’s relationship with President Tinubu.”
The firm closed with a taunt aimed at Mr. Tinubu and his governing All Progressives Congress: “Thank you for the offer, but no thanks.”
The allegation could not be independently verified. The firm has not identified who made the offer or through what channel, and it is unclear whether the person had any actual connection to the Nigerian government. The presidency in Abuja has not publicly addressed the specific claim.
The episode is the latest escalation in a dispute that has migrated from an American courtroom into the center of Nigerian politics, where a 33-year-old civil forfeiture case has become a proxy battle over Mr. Tinubu’s fitness to seek a second term in 2027.
A Paid Advocate, Not a Bystander
Von Batten-Montague-York is not a disinterested watchdog. In March, the firm registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as a lobbyist for Mr. Abubakar, disclosing a 12-month, $1.2 million contract to “counterbalance” the Nigerian government’s messaging in Washington and to arrange meetings with members of Congress and administration officials. The filing describes work on “democratic governance, regional stability, economic development, and U.S. engagement with Nigeria,” though the firm’s public output has focused overwhelmingly on Mr. Tinubu’s past.
Mr. Von Batten himself was born in Nigeria and changed his name from Ikemefuna Okeke before establishing himself in Washington, according to the Nigerian magazine First Weekly, a detail that pro-government outlets have seized upon in recent days.
The firm’s post said a “smear campaign” against Mr. Von Batten had begun shortly after he rebuffed the offer. In the past several days, near-identical articles have appeared across a cluster of Nigerian news sites accusing Mr. Abubakar of “peddling political speculation as classified information” and describing the lobbying contract as a “gamble.” The similarity of the pieces, published under different mastheads within hours of one another, suggests a coordinated placement, though their origin is not clear.
The Records at the Heart of the Fight
The underlying documents concern an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the F.B.I. in Chicago in the early 1990s into a heroin trafficking ring. In 1993, Mr. Tinubu, then a businessman, agreed to forfeit about $460,000 held in American bank accounts that federal prosecutors said were linked to the proceeds of narcotics sales. He was never charged with a crime, and he has long characterized the matter as a civil settlement with no admission of wrongdoing.
The files re-emerged through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought not by the lobbying firm but by Aaron Greenspan, an American transparency activist, who sought the records from the F.B.I., the D.E.A., the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies beginning in 2022. For years the agencies refused even to confirm that records existed. In April 2025, Judge Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia rejected that stance as “neither logical nor plausible” and ordered the release of non-exempt material, ruling that the public interest outweighed Mr. Tinubu’s privacy claims.
The case has moved slowly since. Mr. Tinubu’s lawyers have joined the government in seeking extensions and in asking the court to keep certain material sealed. Last month the F.B.I. told the court that releasing some of the withheld pages “could endanger life,” and Judge Howell agreed to review the disputed documents privately in chambers, setting an Aug. 28 deadline for the agencies to formally oppose disclosure. In its filings, the bureau acknowledged for the first time in the litigation that Mr. Tinubu had been a subject of a drug investigation, a point his allies had for years dismissed as opposition fiction.
Von Batten-Montague-York has attached itself to the case from the outside, publishing running commentary on the docket, warning that Mr. Tinubu risked embarrassment at the United Nations General Assembly this month, and, according to Nigerian press reports this week, taking its case to Capitol Hill.
Stakes in Abuja
For Mr. Tinubu, 74, who took office in 2023 after a disputed election, the resurfacing of the Chicago files has been a persistent irritant. His government has never been directly threatened by the litigation, which concerns the release of records rather than any legal jeopardy for the president. But in a country where his opponents have long used the forfeiture to question his integrity, each incremental ruling has been amplified by a partisan press and a restive electorate frustrated by inflation, currency devaluation and insecurity.
For Mr. Abubakar, 79, who lost to Mr. Tinubu in 2023 and has run for president six times, the American proceedings offer a rare external validator for a line of attack he has pursued for years. His decision to retain a Washington firm to press the matter, rather than leave it to the courts and the press, has drawn criticism even from some who share his doubts about the president.
Whether the $3 million claim advances that campaign or undermines it may depend on what, if anything, the firm ultimately turns over to federal authorities. Attempting to bribe a registered foreign agent to alter his conduct could, depending on the circumstances, raise questions under American law. But an unsupported allegation made by a paid advocate against his client’s opponent is unlikely to carry weight in Washington on its own.
The firm said it would provide “the $3 million offer and related communications” to “our friends” at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. “to protect our reputation and allow the appropriate authorities to review the matter.” It did not say when.
Editor’s note: This draft draws only on publicly reported facts and the firm’s own published statement. It contains no invented quotations. Where responses from the Nigerian presidency, the A.P.C., or Mr. Abubakar’s campaign would ordinarily appear, they have been omitted rather than fabricated; a reporter would need to seek those comments before publication.
(Source: nigeriastandardnewspaper.com with modified headline)
