Tinubu Asks US Court to Keep His FBI and DEA Records Sealed

NIGERIA · POLITICS

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has asked a US federal court to block the further release of records from past American law-enforcement investigations involving him, arguing that disclosure would violate his privacy. The filing revives a long-running transparency battle rooted in a 1990s Chicago drug case — and it lands just as Nigeria’s 2027 election season begins.

What Tinubu is asking the court to do

In a filing before the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Tinubu urged the court to reject a motion for summary judgment brought by Aaron Greenspan, an American transparency activist who founded the legal-records website PlainSite. Greenspan wants the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to lift redactions from documents they have already released and to hand over more material.

Tinubu, who joined the case as an intervenor — an outside party with a direct stake in the outcome — wants the opposite: for the redactions and withholdings to stand. “Plaintiff’s motion should be denied because FOIA is not a tool for obtaining information the government collected about private individuals,” his lawyers argued, according to Nigerian media reports of the filing.

His legal team, identified in court reporting by The Punch as Christopher Carmichael, Victor Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi, leaned on a 1989 US Supreme Court decision, Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. That ruling held that FOIA was designed to show the public “what the government is up to”, not to open files the government holds on private citizens.

How the case began

In 2022 and 2023 Greenspan filed 12 FOIA requests with six US agencies: the FBI, the DEA, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Internal Revenue Service, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys and the Department of State. The requests sought investigative records connected to a heroin-trafficking case in Chicago in the early 1990s, and named four people: Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande and Abiodun Agbele.

Among the records sought were what Greenspan described as the “entire FBI file” on Tinubu and FBI interview records, known as Form 302 reports, from 1992 to 1993.

Several agencies initially issued so-called Glomar responses, refusing to confirm or deny that any records existed. In April 2025, District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA had failed to show sufficient privacy grounds to hide the fact that Tinubu had been the subject of a criminal investigation, and ordered the agencies to search for and process non-exempt records. She upheld the CIA’s right to stay silent.

The agencies have since released thousands of pages, with portions blacked out, and provided a Vaughn index — a document that lists withheld material and the legal reason for each withholding. Greenspan’s current motion challenges those redactions; Tinubu’s filing supports keeping them.

The president’s four arguments

According to the filings as reported by Daily Trust and The Punch, Tinubu’s lawyers make four central points.

First, they say the redacted material is exempt under FOIA Exemption 7(C), which protects personal information in law-enforcement records where disclosure would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy, and under the US Privacy Act.

Second, they argue there is no recognised public interest to weigh against that privacy. Greenspan has argued that the records concern “the sitting President of Nigeria” and “a nation of over 230 million people”. Tinubu’s team replies that public curiosity about his background or fitness for office “is not an interest FOIA recognises”.

Third, they say Greenspan’s real aim is to gather material about Tinubu for Nigerian political purposes, pointing to what they call his “singular focus” on obtaining documents with the president’s “name on them”.

Fourth, they dismiss suggestions that the files could reveal a secret prosecution or a government cover-up as “unsubstantiated allegations”, saying Greenspan has presented no evidence of wrongdoing by US agencies. They also argue that Tinubu keeps a privacy interest in details that have never been made public, even if parts of the 1990s saga are already known.

The 1993 forfeiture in the background

The dispute has shadowed Tinubu for years. In 1993 a US district court in Illinois ordered the civil forfeiture of US$460,000 held in accounts linked to Tinubu, after US authorities alleged the funds were connected to narcotics trafficking or prohibited financial transactions.

Civil forfeiture is a proceeding against property, not a criminal conviction of a person. During Nigeria’s 2023 election petitions, Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress stressed that distinction, while opponents argued the forfeiture amounted to a disqualifying conviction. In September 2023 the Presidential Election Petition Court held that the petitioners had failed to establish that Tinubu was ever arrested, charged, convicted or sentenced in a US criminal case. Tinubu has consistently denied wrongdoing.

Political fallout at home

The filing has already become campaign ammunition. Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesman for the opposition African Democratic Congress, said the president should welcome release of the records. “Why is the President opposing the release of his past records? That is suspicious,” he told The Punch. “He should be the one calling for the records to be released if he has nothing to hide.”

Osa Director, national publicity secretary of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, said Nigerians “deserve to know the truth” and called on Tinubu to clear the air. With campaigning for Nigeria’s January 2027 elections getting under way, the Washington docket is likely to stay in the headlines.

What is still unverified

This report is based on Nigerian press coverage of the court filing; the full text of the intervenor brief had not been independently reviewed at the time of writing. The exact schedule for Judge Howell’s ruling on Greenspan’s motion is not yet public. No US court has made any finding of criminal conduct by Tinubu, and the FOIA case itself is only about whether records must be released.

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