President Bola Tinubu has given the United States District Court for the District of Columbia four reasons why his unredacted records with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency should not be released to the public.
The President, in fillings made by his lawyers and published on Saturday, noted that the US Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act precluded disclosure and there was no public interest in the matter.
Tinubu also said there was no public interest to balance and the plaintiff had ulterior motives for demanding documents with his name on them.
His lawyers were identified as Christopher Carmichael, Victor Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi.
The President’s submission was in response to a request by an American transparency activist, Aaron Greenspan, which sought the disclosure of the records under the US Freedom of Information Act.
But opposition parties in the country kicked against the move, saying Nigerians deserved to know about the President’s past.
The controversy
The controversy surrounding Tinubu’s US law-enforcement history became a major issue in the build up to the February 25, 2023 presidential election after documents relating to a 1993 US civil forfeiture proceeding surfaced.
A US District Court in Illinois had ordered the forfeiture of $460,000 held in an account in Tinubu’s name after the US alleged that the funds represented proceeds of narcotics trafficking or were involved in prohibited financial transactions.
The All Progressives Congress, however, maintained during the presidential election petition proceedings that the case was a civil forfeiture proceeding and not a criminal conviction.
The Labour Party and then presidential candidate Peter Obi argued that the forfeiture amounted to a disqualifying conviction under the Constitution.
The Presidential Election Petition Court held in September 2023 that the petitioners had failed to establish that Tinubu was arrested, arraigned, convicted or sentenced in a criminal case in the US.
Ever since, the opposition and other interested parties have been making moves to get official information relating to Tinubu from the US.
The President’s reasons
Greenspan had argued that his requests concerned the “sitting President of Nigeria…” and “a nation of over 230 million people whose daily lives are directly affected by President Tinubu’s decisions”.
In his rejection of the FOIA request, Tinubu, according to the filings by his lawyer, urged the US District Court to reject the bid because it amounted to an attempt to obtain private information for political purposes in Nigeria.
The President’s lawyers noted that the request was made to provide access to information about government activities.
They specifically rejected the argument that the interest of Nigerians in Tinubu’s background constituted public interest recognised by US laws.
The team also rejected an argument on the President’s fitness for office, stating that “the asserted ‘public interest in Tinubu’s own fitness for office’ is not an interest FOIA recognises or one that needs to be balanced.”
The lawyers further argued that the records sought were protected by privacy provisions under FOIA and the US Privacy Act.
“The redacted information sought by the plaintiff is exempt from disclosure,” they stated, citing Exemption 7(C), which protects personal information contained in law-enforcement records.
The President’s legal team relied on a 1989 US Supreme Court decision, Department of Justice v Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, to argue that FOIA was designed to allow the public to know “what the government is up to” rather than provide access to information about private citizens.
They argued that Greenspan was seeking “disclosure of information about private citizens that is accumulated in various governmental files,” which, they said, “reveals little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.”
‘Records being sought for Nigerian politics’
Tinubu’s lawyers also challenged what they described as the political dimension of the request, arguing that Greenspan’s filings demonstrated a focus on obtaining documents containing the President’s name.
“All of plaintiff’s other critiques should be viewed in the context of plaintiff’s overarching goal,” the lawyers stated.
They added that Greenspan’s filings “overwhelmingly demonstrate that his singular focus is obtaining documents with intervenor’s ‘name on them.’”
The President’s legal team urged the court not to allow the FOIA process to become a means of obtaining information about a private individual simply because of his political position.
“If this court finds that the plaintiff cannot use FOIA to mine information in government files about a private individual, he should not be able to access documents with the intervenor’s name on them,’” the lawyers stated.
They further challenged claims that the records could reveal a secret prosecution or an agreement by US authorities not to prosecute Tinubu.
The team described such claims as speculative and unsupported by evidence.
The lawyers added, “Unsubstantiated allegations are easy to assert in filings, but insufficient to justify a request for information about an individual.”
They stated that Greenspan had failed to provide evidence capable of establishing that alleged government wrongdoing had occurred, as required by US case law.
“Plaintiff has not carried his burden to obtain law enforcement records that mention or identify a private individual,” they stated.
Tinubu seeks continued withholding
The President’s legal team also disputed the argument that his privacy interests had been extinguished because some information relating to the historical investigation had previously become public.
Greenspan had argued that the general nature of the investigation had been in the public domain since 1993.
But Tinubu’s lawyers said the 1993 forfeiture proceeding, including an affidavit filed in the case, did not disclose details or the outcome of any possible criminal investigation involving the President.
The lawyers maintained that even where portions of information had previously appeared in public records, an individual could retain a privacy interest in details that remained undisclosed.
They consequently asked the court to deny Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and allow the FBI and DEA to maintain their redactions and withholding of the records.
Among the records sought are the “entire FBI file” on Tinubu and FBI Form 302 interview records involving him from 1992 to 1993.
In April 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the FBI and DEA to lift their “Glomar” responses, under which the agencies had refused to confirm or deny whether responsive records existed, and directed them to process the requested records subject to applicable exemptions.
The FBI has subsequently sought to keep portions of the records from public disclosure, citing exemptions relating to law-enforcement information, privacy, investigative techniques and the potential safety of individuals.
The ongoing FOIA case concerns access to US government records and does not itself constitute a criminal prosecution or a finding that Tinubu committed a drug-trafficking offence.
Nigerians deserve to know the truth – ADC, NDC
Commenting on the development, the African Democratic Congress and Nigeria Democratic Congress stated that Tinubu’s rejection of the release of the records was suspicious.
The ADC spokesperson, Bolaji Abdullahi, in an interview with one of our correspondents on Saturday, urged the President to allow the records to be released to save his name.
“Why is the President opposing the release of his past records? That is suspicious. The President should allow them (records) to be released to clear himself. The President should come out clean. He should be the one calling for the records to be released if he has nothing to hide because this is not good for him and the image of the country,” he said.
Also, the NDC National Publicity Secretary, Osa Director, said Nigerians deserved to know the truth and urged the President to allow the release of his records with the US agencies.
Director, in an interview with Sunday PUNCH on Saturday, said the argument that Tinubu’s records were being sought for political purposes did not hold water.
“When a man commits an offence and he says, please, don’t blame me because it is the devil, does that mean he should not face the consequence of his action because it is the devil? That is the question the President should answer.
“Whether it is the opposition or not, if the issue wasn’t there, the opposition would not capitalise on it. Why did the opposition not ask the FBI to release records on our presidential candidate, Peter Obi, or Atiku? That is not an excuse.
“Nigerians deserve to know and in the interest of the President. He deserves to clear the air. This case has been hanging on since his time as a governor. It is over 20 years. Even me, as an opposition, am getting bored. It is time, once and for all, that he should clear the air to allow the issue to be buried.”
(Punch)
