The Presidency has moved to douse fresh controversy over President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s legal battle in the United States, insisting that he is not facing a criminal case but is instead caught up in a civil fight over the release of government records.
The clarification came Thursday from the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, amid renewed political and media attention over a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit pending before a federal court in Washington, DC.
At the centre of the dispute is a case filed by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who is seeking access to records held by US agencies relating to an investigation dating back to the early 1990s.
Greenspan’s FOIA requests eventually led to Civil Action No. 23-1816, filed in 2023 before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Tinubu was later allowed to intervene in the case, enabling him to assert privacy interests over records concerning him.
But the Presidency is adamant: this is not a criminal prosecution.
“For clarity, the matter is a civil records-disclosure dispute under the United States Freedom of Information Act,” Onanuga said. “It is not a criminal case against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, nor has the court found him guilty of any criminal wrongdoing.”
The records at the heart of the storm
The dispute traces back to 12 FOIA requests submitted between 2022 and 2023 by Greenspan, founder of the legal-records website PlainSite.
The requests sought records from several US federal agencies concerning a Chicago heroin-trafficking investigation from the early 1990s that reportedly named Tinubu alongside Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande and Abiodun Agbele.
Initially, several agencies responded with what is known as a “Glomar” response—neither confirming nor denying whether they possessed responsive records.
That position later came under judicial scrutiny.
In April 2025, Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA could not rely on their Glomar responses, describing the agencies’ refusals as “neither logical nor plausible,” and ordered them to process the records.
The case has since become a politically charged battle over what those records contain—and what, if anything, they ultimately reveal.399 pages released—but heavily redacted
According to the Presidency, the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration remain in the lawsuit and have so far produced 399 pages of records.
But large portions of the material have been withheld or redacted under exemptions contained in US law.
The Presidency says the exemptions cover matters including grand-jury secrecy, attorney-client privilege, law-enforcement sensitivity, personal privacy, confidential sources and investigative techniques.
Tinubu, it added, has also invoked his privacy rights under the FOIA framework.
The other agencies initially involved—including the CIA, US Attorneys’ offices, State Department, Treasury and IRS—have since exited the case after securing summary judgment based on their Glomar defence.
The political fight intensifies
The legal dispute has also spilled into Nigeria’s political arena.
Onanuga took aim at recent comments by Karl von Batten, saying neither Von Batten nor his client is a party to the US proceedings.
He warned Nigerian media organisations against allowing political commentary to overtake what is actually before the court.
“This case is exclusively within the control of Judge Beryl A. Howell,” Onanuga said, arguing that its outcome would be determined by the evidence, applicable law and arguments of the parties—not political preferences.
The procedural battle is now entering another phase.
Greenspan has until September 11 to respond to filings by the defendants and Tinubu, while the FBI, DEA and Tinubu have until September 18 to respond further.
For now, the Presidency's message is unequivocal: Tinubu is not on criminal trial in the United States.
But the underlying records remain at the heart of the controversy—and until the legal battle over their disclosure is finally settled, the political storm surrounding them is unlikely to disappear.
Presidency:Tinubu’s US records battle is a civil matter
