The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has submitted records relating to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 1993 encounter with American authorities to a federal judge handling a long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case.
The documents were hand-delivered to Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, August 28, 2026, with the FBI requesting that they be reviewed privately by the judge.
Court filings indicated that the records were submitted “under seal, ex parte, in camera,” meaning they were delivered confidentially for the court’s inspection without being made available to the parties involved in the case.
The submission followed a court order directing the FBI to respond to a FOIA request filed by transparency campaigner Aaron Greenspan, who has been seeking records relating to Tinubu’s historical dealings with US law enforcement agencies.
Greenspan filed the FOIA request in 2023 and worked with Nigerian journalist David Hundeyin in pursuing the release of the documents.
The FBI’s latest action came after Judge Howell expressed frustration over repeated delays in the case and set August 28 as a deadline for the agency to comply with her order.
The bureau had previously sought to justify withholding portions of the requested records, citing privacy concerns and exemptions under US freedom-of-information laws.
Earlier in the week, the FBI argued that FOIA was primarily intended to provide access to government records and did not necessarily override the privacy rights of individuals mentioned in those records.
The dispute centres on historical records concerning allegations of drug trafficking and money laundering involving Tinubu in the United States during the early 1990s.
Tinubu has denied wrongdoing and has previously opposed the release of the records, arguing that disclosure could violate his privacy and be exploited by political opponents.
The president’s legal team has also maintained that attempts to obtain the documents are politically motivated and could be used to damage his reputation.
The controversy dates back to a 1993 US civil forfeiture proceeding involving hundreds of thousands of dollars linked to Tinubu, which were forfeited to the US government.
Some records concerning Tinubu’s historical dealings with US authorities were made public in 2023 by the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
However, the latest FOIA proceedings concern additional records held by the FBI and other US law enforcement agencies.
The decision to submit the documents directly to Judge Howell does not amount to their public release. The judge must first determine whether the records, or portions of them, are protected from disclosure under applicable FOIA exemptions.
The court’s eventual ruling could determine whether Greenspan and the public gain access to additional records relating to the historical investigation involving the Nigerian president.
Credit: People’s Gazette
