The presidency has downplayed the US federal court ruling ordering the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release investigative files connected to President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria, saying the documents in question are decades old and contain no incriminating findings.
United States Court for the District of Columbia had last Tuesday directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release records of their investigations of Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu’s involvement in alleged drug trafficking.
In an April 8, 2025 judgment, the district judge, Beryl Howell, ordered that the FBI and DEA “must search for and process non-exempt records responsive to the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests directed to these agencies.
The judge ruled that the evasive “Glomar responses” previously issued in response to the FOIA requests on the matter must be lifted. Glomar responses are given by government agencies to neither confirm nor deny the existence of a particular information requested.
Back in 2022 and 2023, an American and founder of PlainSite, Aaron Greenspan, sought investigative records about Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele who were allegedly associated with a drug ring.
Greenspan therefore filed 12 FOIA requests with six different US federal government agencies including the FBI and the DEA to request the criminal investigation information of the Chicago heroin ring that operated in the early 1990s.
Other agencies that Greenspan wrote to are the United States Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Executive Office of United States Attorneys (EOUSA).
Five of the agencies, according to the court document, issued Glomar responses to Greenspan’s FOIA requests. The agencies stated that they could neither nor confirm the requested records.
A discontent Greenspan subsequently filed a lawsuit to challenge the agencies’ response to the FOIA requests.
In the judgment, the judge ruled that the Glomar responses issued by the FBI and DEA are “improper and must be lifted”.
Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA failed to provide information to “establish cognizable privacy interest exists in keeping secret the fact that Tinubu was a subject of criminal investigation”.
Howell held that the two agencies failed to provide evidence on the burden to sustain their Glomar responses.
ALSO READ:Helicopter In Hudson River Crash Lacked Recorder, NTSB Says
“The FBI and DEA have both officially confirmed investigations of Tinubu relating to the drug trafficking ring,” the judge ruled.
“Any privacy interests implicated by the FOIA requests to the FBI and DEA for records about Tinubu are overcome by the public interest in release of such information.
“Since the FBI and DEA have provided no information to establish that a cognizable privacy interest exists in keeping secret the fact that Tinubu was a subject of criminal investigation.
“They have failed to meet their burden to sustain their Glomar responses and provide an additional reason why these responses must be lifted.”
Hoeever, reacting to theTuesday’s judgement Bayo Onanuga, special adviser on information and strategy to Tinubu, in a post on X on Sunday, said: “There is nothing new to be revealed. The report by Agent Moss of the FBI and the DEA report have been in the public space for more than 30 years. The reports did not indict the Nigerian leader.”
The response follows heightened public interest after the US court partially granted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, ordering the FBI and DEA to lift their long-standing “Glomar” responses, neither confirming nor denying the existence of records, regarding Tinubu’s alleged links to a 1990s heroin trafficking and money laundering investigation in Chicago.
However, Onanuga insisted that the ruling changes nothing about Tinubu’s legal or political standing. “The lawyers are examining the ruling,” he added.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was allowed to maintain its Glomar response, with the court agreeing that confirming or denying the existence of CIA records on Tinubu could compromise national security.
While the FBI and DEA must now process any responsive records for release, the presidency maintains that the matter has been long settled. Tinubu’s legal team has previously argued that the documents were related to civil forfeiture, not criminal conviction, and contain no evidence of wrongdoing.
The court has given the involved parties until May 2, 2025, to report on next steps, even as interest in the case remains high among journalists, political observers, and civil society both in Nigeria and abroad.
