President Bola Tinubu is asking a U.S. federal court to keep parts of FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration records out of public view, saying some of the information is protected by privacy laws. The dispute has renewed attention on a decades-old U.S. case that has followed the Nigerian leader through much of his political career.
The legal battle was brought by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who has been seeking government records through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. His requests cover files held by several federal agencies and include documents connected to investigations involving Tinubu and a Chicago-area drug-trafficking network in the early 1990s.
Tinubu’s lawyers argue that becoming president does not automatically strip him of privacy protections. In court filings, they said the Freedom of Information Act is meant to show how government agencies conduct their work, not to expose every piece of personal information those agencies may have collected about an individual.
His legal team is also backing the FBI and DEA’s decision to black out or withhold portions of the records. They say some of those details are protected under exemptions in U.S. law that allow agencies to shield certain law-enforcement information when disclosure could unfairly invade a person’s privacy.
The case took a major turn in April 2025, when U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA could not continue refusing to confirm or deny the existence of certain records. She ordered the agencies to search for relevant documents and release any information that was not legally protected.
That ruling did not mean every record had to be published in full. The agencies later reviewed thousands of pages and released some material while keeping other portions redacted. Greenspan has continued to challenge those redactions, arguing that the public should be allowed to see more.
Much of the controversy centers on a 1993 civil forfeiture case in the United States. Court records from that period said U.S. authorities alleged that money in certain accounts linked to Tinubu was connected to proceeds from drug trafficking. Tinubu later forfeited about $460,000, but he was not criminally charged or convicted in the matter and has consistently denied wrongdoing.
The issue resurfaced during Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election, when Tinubu’s political opponents cited the U.S. forfeiture case while challenging his eligibility to run for office. Nigerian courts rejected those arguments and upheld his election as president.
Tinubu’s supporters have long said the U.S. records do not show that he was convicted of a drug-related crime. Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga has previously said there was “nothing new to be revealed” in the files and argued that the documents already in the public domain do not establish criminal guilt.
The case now before the U.S. court is about how much of the government’s old investigative material should be made public. It is not a new criminal prosecution against Tinubu. Still, whatever the court decides could shape how much more Nigerians and the wider public learn about a case that has remained politically sensitive for more than 30 years.
