President Bola Tinubu has presented four reasons why he believes his unredacted records held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration should not be released to the public.
The President made the position known through filings submitted by his legal team to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and published on Saturday.
According to the filings, Tinubu argued that the US Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act prevent the disclosure of the records and that there is no sufficient public interest to justify their release.
His lawyers also maintained that there was no competing public interest requiring the information to be disclosed, while alleging that the plaintiff seeking the documents had ulterior motives.
The legal team representing the President included Christopher Carmichael, Victor Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi.
The submission followed a request by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who sought access to records concerning Tinubu under the US Freedom of Information Act.
Opposition parties in Nigeria have opposed Tinubu’s position, arguing that Nigerians have a legitimate interest in knowing more about the President’s past.
The controversy surrounding Tinubu’s history with US law-enforcement authorities became a major political issue ahead of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
The matter centred on documents linked to a 1993 US civil forfeiture proceeding involving funds associated with Tinubu.
A US District Court in Illinois ordered the forfeiture of $460,000 held in an account in Tinubu’s name after US authorities alleged that the money represented proceeds of narcotics trafficking or was connected to prohibited financial transactions.
The All Progressives Congress, however, argued during the presidential election petition proceedings that the matter was a civil forfeiture case and did not amount to a criminal conviction.
The Labour Party and its then presidential candidate, Peter Obi, contended that the forfeiture constituted a conviction capable of disqualifying Tinubu under the Nigerian Constitution.
However, the Presidential Election Petition Court ruled in September 2023 that the petitioners had failed to establish that Tinubu had been arrested, arraigned, convicted or sentenced in a criminal case in the United States.
Since then, opposition groups and other interested parties have continued efforts to obtain official records concerning Tinubu from US authorities.
Greenspan argued that his request involved the “sitting President of Nigeria…” and “a nation of over 230 million people whose daily lives are directly affected by President Tinubu’s decisions”.
Tinubu’s legal team, however, urged the US District Court to reject the request, arguing that it amounted to an attempt to obtain private information for political purposes in Nigeria.
The lawyers maintained that the Freedom of Information Act was intended to provide access to information concerning government activities.
They rejected the argument that Nigerians’ interest in Tinubu’s personal background amounted to the kind of public interest recognised under US law.
The lawyers also dismissed the argument that the records were relevant to assessing 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.”
They further argued that the records being sought were protected under privacy provisions contained in both 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.
Tinubu’s lawyers also 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 enable the public to know “what the government is up to” rather than provide unrestricted access to information about private citizens.
According to the legal team, Greenspan was seeking “disclosure of information about private citizens that is accumulated in various governmental files,” which, they argued, “reveals little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.”
The President’s lawyers also challenged what they described as the political motivation behind Greenspan’s request.
They argued that his court filings showed a particular interest in obtaining documents containing Tinubu’s name.
“All of plaintiff’s other critiques should be viewed in the context of plaintiff’s overarching goal,” the lawyers stated.
They further argued that Greenspan’s filings “overwhelmingly demonstrate that his singular focus is obtaining documents with intervenor’s ‘name on them.’”
The legal team urged the court not to permit the FOIA process to be used as a means of obtaining private information simply because the individual concerned occupies a prominent 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.
The lawyers also disputed claims that the requested records could expose an alleged secret prosecution or an agreement by US authorities not to prosecute Tinubu.
They described such claims as speculative and unsupported by evidence.
The legal team added, “Unsubstantiated allegations are easy to assert in filings, but insufficient to justify a request for information about an individual.”
They maintained that Greenspan had failed to provide evidence demonstrating that any alleged government wrongdoing had taken place, as required under US case law.
“Plaintiff has not carried his burden to obtain law enforcement records that mention or identify a private individual,” they stated.
Tinubu’s lawyers further rejected the argument that his privacy rights had been lost because some information concerning the historical investigation had previously entered the public domain.
Greenspan had argued that the broad details of the investigation had been publicly known since 1993.
However, the President’s legal team maintained that the 1993 forfeiture proceeding, including an affidavit submitted in the case, did not reveal details or the outcome of any potential criminal investigation involving Tinubu.
The lawyers argued that even when certain information has previously appeared in public records, individuals may retain privacy interests in details that have not been disclosed.
They therefore asked the court to reject Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and permit the FBI and DEA to continue withholding or redacting portions of the requested records.
Among the documents being sought are the “entire FBI file” relating to Tinubu as well as FBI Form 302 interview records involving him between 1992 and 1993.
In April 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the FBI and DEA to withdraw their “Glomar” responses, through which the agencies had previously refused to confirm or deny whether responsive records existed.
The judge also directed the agencies to process the requested records subject to applicable legal exemptions.
The FBI subsequently sought to withhold portions of the material from public disclosure, citing exemptions relating to law-enforcement information, privacy, investigative techniques and the safety of individuals.
The ongoing FOIA case concerns access to US government records and does not itself amount to a criminal prosecution or constitute a finding that Tinubu committed a drug-trafficking offence.
Reacting to the development, the African Democratic Congress and Nigeria Democratic Congress criticised Tinubu’s opposition to the release of the records, describing his position as suspicious.
ADC spokesperson Bolaji Abdullahi, in an interview with one of our correspondents on Saturday, urged the President to permit the release of the documents in order to clear 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.
Similarly, NDC National Publicity Secretary, Osa Director, said Nigerians have a right to know the truth and called on the President to allow the release of his records held by US agencies.
Director, speaking to Sunday PUNCH on Saturday, argued that the claim that the records were being sought for political reasons was not sufficient justification for withholding them.
“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.”
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