{"id":93570,"date":"2025-04-13T15:42:50","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T15:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=93570"},"modified":"2025-04-13T20:03:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T20:03:26","slug":"us-court-orders-fbi-anti-drug-agency-to-release-investigation-dossiers-on-tinubu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=93570","title":{"rendered":"Presidency reacts as US court orders FBI, anti-drug agency to release investigation dossiers on Tinubu"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Presidency has suggested that it is unperturbed by emerging reports that a United States Court has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release information on President Bola Tinubu and his alleged involvement in drug trafficking.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Presidential spokesman, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, said in a post on social media in response to media enquiries:\u00a0Our response is as follows. There is nothing new to be revealed.<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u201cThe report by Agent Moss of the FBI and the DEA report have been in the public space for more than 30 years.<\/span><\/h5>\n

\u201cThe reports did not indict the Nigerian leader.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But he added that the Presidency\u2019s lawyers are currently examining the ruling.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h5>\n
Recall that the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered top US law enforcement agencies to release confidential information generated on President Bola Tinubu during a \u201cpurported federal investigation in the 1990s.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
The judge, Beryl Howell, made the order on Tuesday, saying that protecting the information from public disclosure is \u201cneither logical nor plausible.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
An American, Aaron Greenspan, had filed a suit in June 2023 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) against the Executive Office for US Attorneys, Department of State,\u00a0<\/span>Federal Bureau of Investigation<\/span><\/b>(FBI), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).<\/span><\/h5>\n
In his complaint, Mr Greenspan accused the law enforcement agencies of violating the FOIA by failing to release within the statutory time \u201cdocuments relating to purported federal investigations into\u201d President Tinubu and one Abiodun Agbele.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Between 2022 and 2023, Mr Greenspan filed 12 FOIA requests with six different US government agencies and components seeking information about a joint investigation conducted by the FBI, IRS, DEA, and the US Attorney\u2019s Offices for the Northern District of Indiana and Northern District of Illinois.<\/span><\/h5>\n
According to Mr Greenspan, the records being requested involved charging decisions on the activities, including money laundering, of a Chicago heroin ring that operated in the early 1990s.<\/span><\/h5>\n
In each FOIA request, the American sought criminal investigative records about four named individuals \u201callegedly associated with the drug ring: Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
After the requests, all five US agencies issued \u201cGlomar responses\u201d, refusing to confirm or deny whether the requested records exist.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Mr Greenspan contested those responses at the Department of Justice\u2019s Office of Information Policy (\u201cOIP\u201d). The OIP, however, affirmed the agencies\u2019 refusal to confirm or deny the existence of the requested records.<\/span><\/h5>\n
The American then filed a lawsuit on 12 June 2023, naming the FBI, DEA, IRS, EOUSA, and Department of State as defendants and challenging each agency\u2019s response to the separate FOIA requests.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Court documents show that the CIA was later added as a defendant in the First Amended Complaint, along with a challenge to that agency\u2019s glomar response to the plaintiff\u2019s FOIA request.<\/span><\/h5>\n
On 20 October 2023, Mr Greenspan filed an emergency motion seeking a hearing to compel the US agencies to immediately produce records responsive to his FOIA requests. He cited the Nigerian Supreme Court\u2019s plan to begin hearing arguments in three days\u2019 time in a litigation contesting Mr Tinubu\u2019s 2023 election as the President of Nigeria.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Three days later, on 23 October 2023, Mr Greenspan\u2019s emergency motion was denied for failing to \u201csatisfy any of the requirements for emergency injunctive relief.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
Also on that same day, President Tinubu moved to intervene in the case, citing his privacy interests in his \u201cconfidential tax records\u201d and \u201cdocuments from federal law enforcement agencies that fall within the Privacy Act or exceptions to FOIA and should not be disclosed.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
In 1993, Mr Tinubu was said to have forfeited $460,000 to the American government after authorities linked the funds to proceeds of narcotics trafficking.<\/span><\/h5>\n
The issue of Mr Tinubu\u2019s forfeiture of the funds featured prominently at the Presidential Election Petition Court when his opponents, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, challenged the president\u2019s eligibility to contest Nigeria\u2019s presidency. But the election court, in a unanimous decision, dismissed the suits, affirming Mr Tinubu\u2019s election.<\/span>
\nHowever, on Tuesday, Judge Howell ruled partly in favour of Mr Greenspan in the US case.<\/span><\/h5>\n
The judge noted that the \u2018Glomar\u2019 responses asserted by the FBI and DEA are \u201cimproper and must be lifted.\u201d He said the FBI and DEA failed to show that they properly invoked FOIA.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Mr Howell said since it was acknowledged that Mr Tinubu was a subject of an investigation involving both the FBI and DEA, \u201cthe claim that the Glomar responses were necessary to protect this information from public disclosure is at this point neither logical nor plausible.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u2018Why the FOIA request should be granted\u2019<\/span><\/b>
\nExplaining his judgement further, Mr Howell establish that a FOIA requester may challenge the propriety of an agency\u2019s Glomar response in two ways: first, by \u201cchalleng[ing] the agency\u2019s assertion that confirming or denying the existence of any records would result in a cognisable harm under a FOIA exemption,\u201d and, second, showing that the agency \u201chas \u2018officially acknowledged otherwise exempt information through prior disclosure,\u201d meaning that the agency \u201chas \u2018waived its right to claim an exemption with respect to that information.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
In this case, the judge said Mr Greenspan asserts both types of challenges to defendants\u2019 Glomar responses: \u201cThe plaintiffs\u2019 argument that (1) DEA has officially confirmed investigations of Agbele\u2019s involvement in the drug trafficking ring, (2) the FBI and DEA have both officially confirmed investigations of Tinubu relating to the drug trafficking ring, (3) any privacy interests implicated by the FOIA requests to the FBI and DEA for records about Tinubu are overcome by the public interest in release of such information, and (4) the CIA has officially acknowledged records responsive to plaintiff\u2019s FOIA request about Tinubu.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
Meanwhile, the CIA has the judgement entitled in its favour in this case. The judge ruled that Mr Greenspan has failed to show that the \u201cCIA has ever officially acknowledged the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to his FOIA request. therefore, the CIA\u2019s Glomar response must be sustained.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
Tinubu and Agbele\u2019s records cleared for release<\/span><\/b>
\nFive of Mr Greenspan\u2019s FOIA requests are still at issue in the parties\u2019 pending cross-motions for summary judgement.<\/span><\/h5>\n
During the hearing, the plaintiff agreed to narrow the issues for summary judgement briefing to defendants\u2019 Glomar responses, redactions, and withholdings as to Mr Tinubu and Mr Agbele only.<\/span><\/h5>\n
This is why in its judgement, the judge ordered that the remaining parties, apart from CIA, to file jointly, by 2 May, a report on the status of any outstanding issues in this case, as described in the accompanying order.<\/span><\/h5>\n
How drug ring members were busted and linked to Mr Tinubu\u2019s funds<\/span><\/b>
\nPart of the documents submitted by Mr Greenspan to court to back his FOIA case was a verified complaint and accompanying affidavit, filed in the Northern District of Illinois by the DOJ on 26 July 1993.<\/span><\/h5>\n
The documents sought the civil forfeiture of Mr Tinubu\u2019s funds held by First Heritage Bank allegedly connected to the drug trafficking investigation.<\/span><\/h5>\n
The affidavit by Department of Treasury\u2019s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Special Agent Kevin Moss, who was involved in the investigation, detailed the drug trafficking activities of Mr Agbele which provided the ground for seeking the forfeiture of Mr Tinubu\u2019s funds. It also shared insights into how Mr Agbele was arrested while selling white heroin to a person not known to him to be an undercover agent.<\/span><\/h5>\n
It stated that upon arrival in the United States, \u201cAgbele identified Akande (who has also been linked to Mr Tinubu) as his uncle and stated that Akande provided him (Agbele) an apartment in Hammond, Indiana,\u201d citing \u201cinvestigating agents of DEA\u201d as the source of this information.<\/span>
\nFurthermore, he said according to DEA investigators, Mr Agbele sold white heroin to another individual on numerous occasions.<\/span><\/h5>\n
With the assistance of \u201cSource A\u201d, DEA called Mr Agbele to purchase a small amount of white heroin,\u201d which resulted in a transaction where \u201cAgbele sold one ounce of white heroin to a law enforcement officer working in an undercover capacity.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
Subsequent to this sale, \u201cAgbele was arrested and agreed to cooperate\u201d with the investigation.<\/span>
\nThe affidavit also states that further investigation by DEA disclosed a lease application completed by Mr Agbele.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Mr Moss\u2019s affidavit confirmed that both the FBI and DEA investigated Mr Tinubu in the wider probe into the drug trafficking activities of Mr Agbele and other members of his ring.<\/span><\/h5>\n
It confirmed that \u201cthere is probable cause to believe that funds in certain bank accounts controlled by Bola Tinubu were involved in financial transactions\u201d in violation of US laws \u201cand represent proceeds of drug trafficking.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
It stated that seeking to target Mr Tinubu\u2019s funds arose from \u201cinvestigation of money laundering of the proceeds of a heroin distribution organisation in the Chicago area.\u201d The clues relied on were said to include \u201cinformation provided by Special Agents of the IRS, DEA, (and) FBI.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
Although Mr Tinubu forfeited the suspect funds, he has consistently denied wrongdoings. He has also never been criminally indicted or charged in the case.<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u25cf Additional report by Premium<\/strong> Times<\/strong>.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Presidency has suggested that it is unperturbed by emerging reports that a United States Court has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release information on President Bola Tinubu and his alleged involvement in drug trafficking. Presidential spokesman, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, said in a post on social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":90285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[904,56,6209],"class_list":["post-93570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-fbi","tag-tinubu","tag-us-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/90285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}