The Presidency has dismissed reports suggesting that President Bola Tinubu is facing a criminal case in the United States, describing the matter before a Washington, DC court as a civil dispute over access to government records.
The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said this in a statement on Thursday, stressing that the case filed by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan under the US Freedom of Information Act does not amount to a criminal trial.
“For clarity, the matter is a civil records-disclosure dispute under the United States Freedom of Information Act. It is not a criminal case against President Bola Tinubu, nor has the court found him guilty of any criminal wrongdoing,” Onanuga said.
He said Greenspan filed FOIA requests in 2022 seeking records from several US government agencies before instituting Civil Action No. 23-1816 in 2023. President Tinubu was later allowed to join the suit as an intervenor to protect his privacy interests.
Onanuga said the CIA, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, Department of State, Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service had been removed from the case after obtaining summary judgment based on the “Glomar defence,” under which agencies can neither confirm nor deny the existence of certain records.
He said the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration remain defendants and have released 399 pages of records, although some portions were redacted under US law to protect grand jury proceedings, attorney-client privilege, law enforcement information, personal privacy, confidential sources and investigative techniques.
The presidential aide said President Tinubu had also invoked his privacy rights under applicable FOIA exemptions.
According to him, Greenspan has until September 11 to respond to filings by the defendants and President Tinubu, while the FBI, DEA and Tinubu have until September 18 to file further responses.
Onanuga also dismissed recent comments by Karl von Batten, noting that neither Von Batten nor his client is a party to the case.
He urged the Nigerian media to distinguish between verified court proceedings and partisan speculation, stressing that the outcome would be determined by Judge Beryl A. Howell based on the evidence and applicable law.
The case arose from 12 FOIA requests filed between 2022 and 2023 seeking US government records relating to a Chicago heroin-trafficking investigation from the early 1990s in which Tinubu was named alongside three others. Judge Howell ruled in April 2025 that the agencies’ initial refusals to confirm or deny the existence of records were “neither logical nor plausible” and ordered the FBI and DEA to process the records.