A U.S. federal court has directed top law enforcement agencies — the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — to release records related to President Bola Tinubu, ruling that withholding such information is unjustifiable.
The order, handed down by Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, came in response to a motion filed by American activist Aaron Greenspan.
Greenspan had urged the court to reconsider an earlier ruling, arguing that the FBI and DEA violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to release documents allegedly tied to federal investigations involving President Tinubu and Abiodun Agbele.
Judge Howell agreed, declaring that protecting the records from public scrutiny is “neither logical nor plausible.”
According to court filings, Greenspan accused the agencies of improperly invoking the FOIA’s “Glomar” response — a refusal to confirm or deny the existence of records — to block access to the documents.
The judge sided partly with Greenspan, stating that both the FBI and DEA had failed to justify their secrecy.
She ruled that their Glomar responses were “improper and must be lifted.”
“The claim that the Glomar responses were necessary to protect this information from public disclosure is at this point neither logical nor plausible,” Judge Howell said.
The ruling highlights that Tinubu had in the past forfeited $460,000 to the U.S. government in 1993 after authorities linked the funds to proceeds of narcotics trafficking — a matter that resurfaced during the 2023 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
Opposition candidates Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi had cited the forfeiture in contesting Tinubu’s eligibility, but the tribunal dismissed their petitions and upheld Tinubu’s victory.
Judge Howell further explained that FOIA requests can challenge agency silence either by showing the potential for public harm is overstated or by citing previous official disclosures of the same information — both of which, she said, applied in Greenspan’s case.
Greenspan argued that the DEA and FBI had “officially confirmed investigations of Tinubu relating to the drug trafficking ring” and that any privacy concerns were outweighed by public interest.
The court’s decision marks a significant legal step in the ongoing push for transparency around Tinubu’s past ties to U.S. investigations.
