The Presidency has stated that the recent United States’ court ruling ordering American law enforcement agencies to release confidential information gathered from investigating President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for drug-related case in the 1990s is nothing new and did not in any way indict the Nigerian leader.
Presidential Spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, said there is nothing new to be revealed and the said report by “Agent Moss of the FBI and the DEA report has been in the public space for more than 30 years.”
Onanuga said journalists have sought the Presidency’s reaction to the ruling last Tuesday by a Washington DC judge ordering the US FBI and DEA to release reports connected with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Our response is as follows, “There is nothing new to be revealed. The report by Agent Moss of the FBI and the DEA report have been in the public space for more than 30 years. The reports did not indict the Nigerian leader. The lawyers are examining the ruling.”
Similarly, Tinubu’s US-based lawyers; Babatunde Ogala, SAN, and Attorney Afolabi, both corroborated the presidency’s position.
“The President has travelled to the United States of America several times since 1994 and he has been granted the rights of ingress and egress into the Country.”
The U.S, court ordered the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release information on investigation involving Tinubu. Beryl Howell, the presiding jurist, said protecting the information from public disclosure is neither logical nor plausible.
An American citizen, Aaron Greenspan, had filed a suit June 2023 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) against the Executive Office for US Attorneys, Department of State, FBI, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Greenspan accused the law enforcement agencies of violating the FOIA by failing to release within the statutory time documents relating to purported federal investigations into Tinubu and one Abiodun Agbele.
In his FOIA request, the American sought criminal investigative records about four named individuals allegedly associated with the drug ring: Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele.
On Tuesday, the judge noted that since it was acknowledged that Tinubu was a subject of an investigation involving both the FBI and DEA, the claim that the Glomar responses were necessary to protect this information from public disclosure is at this point neither logical nor plausible.
He struck down the exemptions previously used to redact the files, and ordered the FBI and DEA to remove the redactions and release the files again.
The judge ordered the FBI and DEA to file jointly, by 2nd May, a report on the status of any outstanding issues in this case, as described in the accompanying order.