President Bola Tinubu has asked a United States federal court to reject efforts to make his unredacted records held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) publicly available, arguing that US privacy and freedom-of-information laws protect the documents from disclosure.
The President’s position was contained in filings submitted by his legal team to the US District Court for the District of Columbia and published on Saturday. His lawyers argued that the records should continue to be withheld because the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act restrict the release of sensitive personal information contained in law-enforcement files.
Tinubu’s lawyers also maintained that the request did not establish a legally recognised public interest that could outweigh the President’s privacy rights. They further alleged that the request was driven, at least in part, by political motives connected to Nigerian politics. The legal team representing Tinubu includes Christopher Carmichael, Victor Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi.
The President’s submission followed a request by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who has been seeking access to records relating to Tinubu under the US Freedom of Information Act. The case has attracted significant attention in Nigeria, particularly among opposition political parties and groups that argue that Nigerians have a legitimate interest in knowing more about the President’s history in the United States.
The dispute over Tinubu’s U.S law-enforcement records dates back several decades but became a major political issue during the build-up to the 2023 presidential election. At the centre of the controversy were documents connected to a 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding in the United States.
A U.S District Court in Illinois ordered the forfeiture of $460,000 held in an account associated with Tinubu after U.S authorities alleged that the money represented proceeds of narcotics trafficking or was connected to prohibited financial transactions.
Tinubu’s political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), argued during the presidential election litigation that the case was a civil forfeiture proceeding and did not amount to a criminal conviction.
The Labour Party and its then presidential candidate, Peter Obi, however, contended that the forfeiture had implications under the Nigerian Constitution and should be regarded as a disqualifying conviction.
In September 2023, the Presidential Election Petition Court ruled that the petitioners had not established that Tinubu was arrested, arraigned, convicted or sentenced in a criminal case in the United States. Despite that ruling, demands for official records concerning Tinubu’s history in the US have continued, with Greenspan’s FOIA case becoming one of the latest avenues through which the documents are being pursued.
According to the President’s lawyers, the request should be rejected for several reasons.
First, they argued that the information sought falls within privacy protections contained in US law. They cited FOIA Exemption 7(C), which protects personal information contained in law-enforcement records where disclosure could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
“The redacted information sought by the plaintiff is exempt from disclosure,” the lawyers stated.
Second, the legal team argued that the public-interest justification advanced by Greenspan does not meet the standard recognised under US FOIA law.
Greenspan had argued that his request concerned the “sitting President of Nigeria…” and “a nation of over 230 million people whose daily lives are directly affected by President Tinubu’s decisions”.
Tinubu’s lawyers rejected the suggestion that Nigerians’ interest in the President’s personal history automatically creates a public interest recognised by American freedom-of-information law. They also challenged the argument concerning Tinubu’s fitness for public office, stating that “the asserted ‘public interest in Tinubu’s own fitness for office’ is not an interest FOIA recognises or one that needs to be balanced.”
To strengthen their argument, Tinubu’s legal team relied on a 1989 US Supreme Court ruling in Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
The lawyers argued that FOIA was created primarily to enable the public to understand “what the government is up to”, rather than to provide unrestricted access to information about private individuals contained in government files. They maintained that Greenspan was effectively seeking “disclosure of information about private citizens that is accumulated in various governmental files,” which they said “reveals little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.”
On that basis, the lawyers argued that the mere fact that the records concern a sitting foreign president does not automatically transform private law-enforcement information into government-conduct information subject to public disclosure.
Tinubu’s lawyers also questioned Greenspan’s motives, arguing that his filings indicate that the request is closely connected to political debates in Nigeria They told the court that the request appeared particularly focused on obtaining documents bearing the President’s name.
“All of plaintiff’s other critiques should be viewed in the context of plaintiff’s overarching goal,” the lawyers stated.
They added that Greenspan’s filings “overwhelmingly demonstrate that his singular focus is obtaining documents with intervenor’s ‘name on them.’”
The legal team urged the court to prevent the FOIA process from being used to obtain private information about an individual simply because that person occupies a prominent political position.
“If this court finds that the plaintiff cannot use FOIA to mine information in government files about a private individual, he should not be able to access documents with the intervenor’s name on them,’” the lawyers stated.
The President’s lawyers also pushed back against suggestions that the FBI or other US authorities may have conducted a secret criminal investigation or reached an agreement not to prosecute Tinubu.
According to the legal team, such claims are speculative and have not been backed by evidence.
The lawyers added, “Unsubstantiated allegations are easy to assert in filings, but insufficient to justify a request for information about an individual.”
They further argued that Greenspan had not provided evidence demonstrating that any alleged government misconduct actually occurred.
“Plaintiff has not carried his burden to obtain law enforcement records that mention or identify a private individual,” they stated.
Another major issue in the case is whether Tinubu can still claim privacy protections over information relating to an investigation whose general existence has been publicly known for decades.
Greenspan has argued that the broad nature of the investigation was already in the public domain following the 1993 forfeiture proceedings.
Tinubu’s lawyers, however, maintained that the existence of an old court case does not automatically eliminate an individual’s privacy interest in additional information that has never been publicly disclosed.
They argued that documents from the 1993 forfeiture proceedings, including an affidavit filed in the case, did not reveal the details or outcome of any potential criminal investigation involving Tinubu.
The lawyers therefore asked the court to reject Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and permit the FBI and DEA to continue withholding or redacting portions of the requested records.
Among the materials sought are the “entire FBI file” relating to Tinubu, as well as FBI Form 302 interview records involving him from 1992 to 1993. The case took a significant turn in April 2025 when US District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the FBI and DEA to abandon their so-called “Glomar” responses.
Under a Glomar response, a government agency refuses to confirm or deny whether records responsive to a request even exist.
Judge Howell directed the agencies to process Greenspan’s requests, subject to applicable legal exemptions.
The FBI subsequently sought to keep portions of the records from public disclosure, relying on exemptions covering law-enforcement information, personal privacy, investigative techniques and information that could potentially endanger individuals.
The ongoing FOIA proceedings have revived debate over Tinubu’s historical dealings with US authorities, but the nature of the case remains important. The proceedings are focused on whether US government records should be disclosed under American freedom-of-information laws. They do not, by themselves, amount to a criminal prosecution of President Tinubu or constitute a judicial finding that he committed a drug-trafficking offence.
The latest filings now place the issue before the US District Court for the District of Columbia, where the competing arguments over government transparency, individual privacy and the public interest will continue to shape the dispute over whether the FBI and DEA records should eventually be made public.
