Tinubu Opposes Release of FBI and DEA Records in US Court

By Victor Idajili

President Bola Tinubu has asked the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to reject a request for the public release of his unredacted records with the FBI and DEA.

In filings made public on Saturday by his lawyers Christopher Carmichael, Victor Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi, Tinubu argued that US law bars the disclosure and that there is no legal public interest in releasing the documents.

The filings were in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who is seeking records on the President.

Tinubu’s legal team gave four grounds for opposing the release. They said the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act protect the records, citing FOIA Exemption 7(C) which covers personal details in law-enforcement files. They added that even where some information is already public, an individual can still have a privacy interest in undisclosed details.

The lawyers also rejected the argument that Nigerians’ interest in the President’s background amounts to a public interest under US law. “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 stated.

Referring to a 1989 US Supreme Court decision, they said FOIA is meant to show “what the government is up to” and not to expose information about private citizens. They accused Greenspan of seeking documents with Tinubu’s name for use in Nigerian politics, and urged the court not to allow FOIA to be used to mine government files for information on an individual because of their political office.

The team further dismissed claims that the records could prove a secret prosecution or an agreement not to prosecute Tinubu as speculative and unsupported.

Greenspan is requesting the “entire FBI file” on Tinubu and FBI Form 302 interview records from 1992 to 1993. In April 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the FBI and DEA to process the request under normal FOIA exemptions after they had refused to confirm whether the records exist. The agencies are now seeking to keep parts redacted on grounds of privacy and law-enforcement concerns.

The controversy came up again during the 2023 presidential election after documents from a 1993 US civil forfeiture case resurfaced. A US District Court in Illinois had ordered the forfeiture of $460,000 from an account linked to Tinubu over allegations of narcotics-related funds. The APC said it was a civil matter, not a criminal conviction. The Labour Party and Peter Obi argued otherwise, but the Presidential Election Petition Court in September 2023 ruled that no evidence was provided that Tinubu was arrested, arraigned, convicted or sentenced in a criminal case in the US.

Opposition parties have since criticized Tinubu’s objection. ADC spokesperson Bolaji Abdullahi said the President should allow the records to be released. “Why is the President opposing the release of his past records? That is suspicious. The President should allow them to be released to clear himself... if he has nothing to hide,” he said. 

NDC National Publicity Secretary Osa Director also said Nigerians deserve to know the truth.