The Presidency has responded to a United States court ruling that ordered American law enforcement agencies to release confidential information relating to President Bola Tinubu, generated during a purported federal investigation in the 1990s.
The order was handed down by Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who ruled that the FBI and DEA must release the documents, stating that the continued secrecy was “neither logical nor plausible.”
The ruling followed a lawsuit filed in June 2023 by U.S. citizen Aaron Greenspan, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Greenspan sued multiple agencies, including the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA), FBI, DEA, IRS, Department of State, and later, the CIA. He alleged that these agencies failed to respond adequately to 12 FOIA requests he submitted between 2022 and 2023, seeking documents on President Tinubu and others linked to a heroin trafficking network in Chicago during the 1990s.
The agencies responded with “Glomar” denials—refusals to confirm or deny whether such records exist.Greenspan contested those responses and later filed an emergency motion in October 2023, urging a speedy release of the records ahead of a Supreme Court hearing in Nigeria challenging Tinubu’s election. That motion was denied. Tinubu subsequently moved to intervene in the suit, citing privacy concerns over the release of his tax and law enforcement records. Despite this, Judge Howell found that the Glomar responses by the FBI and DEA were improper, given that both agencies had already officially acknowledged investigations involving Tinubu.
The judge wrote that the arguments for withholding the documents had failed under FOIA’s standards, and that “the claim that the Glomar responses were necessary to protect this information from public disclosure is at this point neither logical nor plausible.” The court, however, sustained the CIA’s Glomar response, stating that Greenspan failed to show the agency had ever officially acknowledged the existence or nonexistence of relevant records.”
Greenspan’s FOIA requests targeted investigative records concerning Bola Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele—all individuals linked in U.S. law enforcement records to a distribution network operating in the early 1990s.
Reacting to the latest court decision, Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, said there was nothing new to be revealed in the documents ordered for release. “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 lawyers are examining the ruling,” he stated.
The legal challenge is ongoing, with Judge Howell ordering the parties excluding the CIA to file a joint status report by May 2 on any remaining disputes regarding the release of the records, which now focus specifically on Tinubu and Agbele.
Despite the controversy surrounding the 1993 forfeiture, Tinubu has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and no U.S. court has ever brought criminal charges against him. The latest court ruling, while reigniting public interest, does not establish guilt but simply compels the release of documents under U.S. transparency laws.
