President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has asked a United States federal court to prevent the public release of records held by American law-enforcement agencies concerning historical investigations involving him.
Tinubu’s legal team filed a 16-page submission before the US District Court for the District of Columbia, urging the court to reject a request seeking further disclosure of records held by the US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The application was filed in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan. His request seeks records relating to investigations involving Tinubu, including the FBI’s files and interview records from 1992 and 1993.
Tinubu’s lawyers argued that releasing unredacted portions of the documents would infringe on the president’s privacy rights. They maintained that the fact that some information connected to an earlier civil forfeiture proceeding is already known publicly does not automatically remove privacy protections covering other investigative material.
The legal team urged the court to allow existing redactions and withholding of portions of the records to remain in place.
The dispute has attracted renewed attention because the requested documents are linked to long-running allegations concerning a 1993 US civil forfeiture proceeding involving approximately $460,000 associated with Tinubu. Tinubu has denied wrongdoing, and the current FOIA proceedings do not amount to a criminal prosecution against him.
The FBI has separately argued that releasing certain sensitive information could expose confidential sources, reveal investigative methods or create security risks for people connected to past investigations. The bureau recently submitted some records to Judge Beryl Howell for private review.
The case has become politically significant in Nigeria as attention shifts toward the 2027 presidential election, with opposition figures calling for greater transparency over Tinubu’s historical records.
For now, the court has yet to make a final determination on what information should be released. The contents of the disputed records therefore remain subject to the US judicial process, while the allegations surrounding the historical investigation remain contested.
