Two years after efforts by individuals, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, to obtain Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered U.S. law enforcement agencies to release confidential information related to a “purported federal investigation in the 1990s.”
The Presidency maintains that the information sought is not new and does not incriminate Tinubu.
Legal experts noted that the U.S. court’s order is subject to appeals.
A Premium Times report cites Judge Beryl Howell’s Tuesday ruling, stating that withholding the information from public disclosure is “neither logical nor plausible.”
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in June 2023 by American citizen Aaron Greenspan under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) against the Executive Office for US Attorneys, Department of State, FBI, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
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Greenspan accused these agencies of violating the FOIA by failing to release documents related to federal investigations into President Tinubu and Abiodun Agbele within the statutory timeframe.
Between 2022 and 2023, Greenspan submitted 12 FOIA requests to six U.S. government agencies, seeking information about a joint investigation by the FBI, IRS, DEA, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Northern District of Indiana and Northern District of Illinois.
Greenspan’s requests centered on records related to charging decisions regarding a Chicago heroin ring from the early 1990s, allegedly involving Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele.
All five agencies initially issued “Glomar responses,” refusing to confirm or deny the existence of the requested records. Greenspan challenged these responses with the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP), which upheld the agencies’ refusals.
Greenspan subsequently filed a lawsuit on June 12, 2023, naming the FBI, DEA, IRS, EOUSA, and Department of State as defendants. The CIA was later added to the lawsuit.
On October 20, 2023, Greenspan filed an emergency motion to compel the agencies to release the records, citing the Nigerian Supreme Court’s impending hearing on Tinubu’s 2023 election. This motion was denied three days later.
President Tinubu then moved to intervene in the case, citing privacy concerns over his tax records and law enforcement documents.
In 1993, Tinubu reportedly forfeited $460,000 to the U.S. government due to alleged links to narcotics trafficking.
This forfeiture was a key point of contention during the Presidential Election Petition Court, where Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi challenged Tinubu’s eligibility. The court dismissed these suits, affirming Tinubu’s election.
However, on Tuesday, Judge Howell ruled partly in favor of Greenspan.
The judge explained that a FOIA requester can challenge a Glomar response by demonstrating that confirming or denying the records would not result in harm, or that the agency has previously disclosed the information.
In this case, Greenspan argued that the DEA and FBI had already confirmed investigations into Tinubu and Agbele, and that the public interest outweighed any privacy concerns.
The CIA’s Glomar response was upheld, as Greenspan failed to prove the agency had acknowledged the existence of the records.
Five of Greenspan’s FOIA requests remain in contention.
The judge ordered the remaining parties, excluding the CIA, to file a joint status report on outstanding issues by May 2nd.
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