ABUJA, NIGERIA — The camp of African Democratic Congress presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has challenged President Bola Tinubu to allow the release of his United States investigative records if they contain no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, intensifying the long-running controversy over the President’s past.
Phrank Shaibu, Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to Atiku, threw the challenge in a post on X on Thursday, following fresh disclosures by US journalist and transparency activist Aaron Greenspan about investigations involving Tinubu and an alleged drug-trafficking network in the 1990s.
Shaibu directed the challenge at Tinubu and senior members of his administration, including presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development Festus Keyamo, and Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, Sunday Dare.
“Open the files, Mr Bola…since there is nothing!” Shaibu wrote, arguing that the continued resistance to the release of the records was inconsistent with the Presidency’s position that the matter was merely a civil dispute over access to government documents.
His comments followed an interview in which Greenspan disclosed details of what he described as three separate US cases connected to the same alleged drug network and raised the possibility of a fourth case. Greenspan is the plaintiff in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act case before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where he is seeking access to records held by US agencies concerning investigations involving Tinubu and Nigerian businessman Abiodun Agbele.
According to Greenspan, the three identified cases include a series of criminal indictments from 1992 involving members of the alleged drug network, a separate criminal indictment involving Agbele, and a civil forfeiture proceeding involving about $460,000 held in an account in Tinubu’s name.
“There’s at least three known cases now that are tied to this drug ring,” Greenspan said, according to the account of the interview. He added that there “could be a fourth” involving a criminal indictment against Tinubu, but stressed that he did not have conclusive evidence that such an indictment existed.
Greenspan’s comments do not establish that Tinubu was criminally indicted or convicted. He specifically acknowledged that no known criminal indictment against the President had been established from the records currently available.
The controversy centres on Greenspan’s FOIA lawsuit, Civil Action No. 23-1816, which was filed in 2023 after US agencies withheld some requested records or declined to confirm or deny whether certain records existed. In August, reports indicated that Tinubu had challenged the release of some records sought by Greenspan, including FBI materials relating to investigations from the 1990s.
Onanuga said earlier this month that the matter was a “civil records-disclosure dispute” under the US FOIA and that neither the court nor the proceedings had established any criminal wrongdoing by Tinubu. He explained that the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration had produced 399 pages of records, with portions withheld or redacted under exemptions provided by US law. The Presidency also said US agencies had invoked the “Glomar defence,” which allows government agencies in certain circumstances to refuse to confirm or deny the existence of particular investigative records.
The Presidency has consistently maintained that the allegations are politically motivated and that Tinubu has never been convicted of any crime in the United States or anywhere else. It has accused the opposition of attempting to use the FOIA case to smear the President ahead of the 2027 elections.
Atiku’s camp, however, insists that the refusal to release the records raises questions that must be answered. Shaibu argued that if the files contain nothing incriminating, there is no reason for the President to resist their release.
“When you have nothing to hide, you don’t fight to keep the files sealed. The American people have a right to know, and so do Nigerians. If the records are clean, let them be released,” Shaibu stated.
As the legal battle in the US continues, the controversy is likely to remain a major issue in Nigeria’s political landscape ahead of the 2027 elections. For now, the Atiku camp’s challenge has added pressure on the Presidency to address the matter more directly, while Tinubu’s supporters insist that the allegations are baseless and politically motivated.
