President Bola Tinubu has asked a United States court to prevent the release of records held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Department of Justice relating to past investigations and allegations concerning him.
The request was made through Tinubu’s legal team in a 16-page court filing in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case brought by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan against several US government agencies.
Greenspan is seeking records relating to investigations involving Tinubu, including what he describes as the FBI’s complete file on the Nigerian president, FBI Form 302 interview records covering 1992 and 1993, as well as documents connected to a 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding involving approximately $460,000 allegedly linked to Tinubu.
Tinubu has denied wrongdoing.
In opposing the release of the records, his lawyers — Christopher W. Carmichael, Victor P. Henderson and Oluwole O. Afolabi — argued that disclosure could infringe on their client’s privacy rights.
The lawyers maintained that information previously made public in connection with the forfeiture proceedings did not amount to disclosure of the broader investigative files being sought by Greenspan.
According to the filing, the previous records “did not reveal the details of a possible criminal investigation” or its outcome concerning Tinubu.
The legal team argued that the fact that some information may already be publicly available does not eliminate an individual’s privacy interest in undisclosed information contained in government investigative files.
They relied on US Supreme Court precedent and other court decisions involving government investigative records to support their position.
Tinubu’s lawyers also challenged Greenspan’s focus on obtaining documents containing the president’s name, arguing that such a focus does not override exemptions provided under the FOIA and the Privacy Act.
They argued that if FOIA cannot be used to obtain information from government files about a private individual, Greenspan should likewise not be permitted to obtain otherwise protected documents simply because the individual’s name appears in them.
The lawyers further asked the court to reject Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and permit the FBI and DEA to maintain existing redactions or withholdings on the records.
The case centres on Greenspan’s efforts to obtain historical US government records relating to Tinubu, including documents connected to events dating back more than three decades.
The filing does not itself establish that Tinubu committed drug trafficking or any other criminal offence. Rather, it concerns whether records sought through FOIA should be released or remain protected from disclosure.
The court is expected to determine whether the requested records, or portions of them, can legally be withheld under applicable privacy and FOIA exemptions.
