The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Think Computer Corporation, Mr. Aaron Greenspan, has initiated a Federal Civil Lawsuit against the United States Government over refusal to release the criminal file of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Defendants in the suit include the United States Department of State, the United States Attorney General, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
The suit, filed at the District Of Columbia District Court with case no. 1:23-cv-01816-BAH, has District Judge Beryl A. Howell, as the presiding judge.
Summons to all seven Defendants have been issued.
Trouble started when Mr. Greenspan and his firm, Think Computer Corporation, under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Cause Section 05 U.S.C. § 552, in an FOIA request dated July 16, 2022, applied to the FBI for information on one Lee Andrew Edwards, referenced in Northern District of Illinois drug case involving Tinubu and Mueez Adegboyega Akande but was refused.
Greenspan specifically requested for “Records from the Northern District of Illinois and/or Northern District of Indiana involving charging decisions for the following individuals:
1. Bola Ahmed Tinubu ***President of Nigeria as of 2/2023
2. Mueez Adegboyega Akande ***Deceased as of 11/16/2022***
He noted: “Both of these individuals were discussed in the IRS affidavit in Northern District of Illinois Case No. 1:93-cv-04483 as having at least committed the crime of money laundering, but were not charged in Northern District of Indiana Case No. 2:92-cr-00113-RL.
“There is no privacy interest at issue as Tinubu is President of Nigeria as of February 2023 and Akande is deceased. (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/1991 To 12/31/1993).”
In his request for Expedite Reason, Greenspan noted that “Mr. Akande was a money laundering associate of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who in February 2023 won the Nigerian presidential election. The election of Mr. Tinubu is the source of considerable public dispute.”
His request was, however, turned down.
Going further, Greenspan made a similar application to the FOIA and Privacy Act Unit of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration.
He requested, in case number: 22-00892-F, the following:
“Any records from the DEA’s Hammond, Indiana or Washington, D.C. offices concerning the Nigerian heroin distribution organization active from approximately 1988 to 1994 or later involving any of the following third parties Tinubu, Bola Ahmed and Edwards, Lee Andrew. This organization is described in a civil forfeiture complaint and IRS CI affidavit in ILND Case No. 1:93-cv-04483. (Date Range for Record Search: From 1/1/1988 To 1/1/1994)”
Again he was turned down despite expressing willingness to pay additional fees and entered the maximum amount he was willing to pay.
The refusal was followed by more applications to other relevant authorities which met similar actions.
Greenspan appealed all rejections up to the Executive Office for United States Attorneys.
In the appeals, marked “Re: FOIA request 1553430 / Lee Edwards”, and addressed to “To Whom It May Concern”, he indicated:
“It is clearly in the public interest to disclose records related to Bola Ahmed Tinubu and/or his relative K.O. Tinubu. Mr. Tinubu is a current presidential candidate in Nigeria for the February 2023 Nigerian presidential election.
There is a strong public interest in Nigeria—and among the over 350,000 Nigerian-Americans residing in the United States—who would like to know more information about Mr. Tinubu’s involvement with criminal law enforcement in the United States before he was a presidential candidate. Given that Mr. Tinubu could be elected president of Nigeria, his personal privacy interests are not nearly as strong as the public interest in knowing more about his criminal past.”
His appeals hit a brick wall, regardless.
on March 23, 2023, Aaron Greenspan commenced a similar application on Tinubu and Mueez Adegboyega Akande.
The application similarly went to the offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service.
He noted that Tinubu went ahead and became the president of Nigeria, albeit subject to litigation at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Akande is widely reported to have died in strange circumstances on or around November 16, 2022 in Nigerian.
Greenspan’s applications, nonetheless, met responses synonymous to those of Lee Andrew Edwards.
He appealed the decisions to the United States Department of State and the United States Attorney General.
In the appeal filed on June 6, 2023, Greenspan wrote:
“Bola Tinubu is now the President of Nigeria as of late May 2023. This FOIA request was denied by the FBI FOIA Office on the grounds that “you have not sufficiently demonstrated that the public’s interest in disclosure (relating to the operations and activities of the government) outweigh the personal privacy interests of [the President of Nigeria].”
“This is frankly ridiculous. According to Wikipedia, “The 2016 American Community Survey estimates that 380,785 U.S. residents report Nigerian ancestry.” In addition, “The 2012-2016 ACS[5] estimates that 277,027 American residents were born in Nigeria.”
“Accordingly, the politics of Nigeria are of interest to hundreds of thousands of Americans at least. Bola Tinubu is not a United States citizen, has never paid United States taxes, does not live in the United States, and is thus not entitled to “personal privacy” under the FOIA statute.
“The subject of his involvement with criminal activities in Chicago in the 1990s, for which there is already a public record of his being interviewed by the FBI in the form of an affidavit in civil court by IRS Special Agent Kevin Moss, is of intense interest in the Nigerian press. See USA v. Acct 263226700, et al, Illinois Northern District Court Case No. 1:93-cv-04483, Document No. 1-1.
“Both in the United States and in Nigeria, there is overwhelming public interest in every word that President Tinubu communicated to the FBI and vice-versa. The government has provided no justification for its boilerplate denial.
“Nor should the federal government be in the business of protecting foreign heads of state from information regarding their criminal activity on U.S. soil.
“Finally, it is clear that these case documents exist because I already specified the case number to search for them in.
“In summary, President Tinubu has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the United States regarding his criminal history as Nigeria’s President, and even if he did, the public interest vastly outweighs his private interest.”
He added:
Bola Tinubu is now the President of Nigeria. Hundreds of thousands of individuals are interested in these materials, and the fact that the FBI has handled FOIA requests about President Tinubu has been the subject of articles in the Nigerian press.
“I run PlainSite, a website that is dedicated to publishing government materials free of charge. As PlainSite’s operator, I can attest that these materials would be of intense public interest and are also time-sensitive given President Tinubu’s control of the Nigerian military and government organs.
“I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States that the foregoing is true and correct.”
Regarding his appeal against DEA’s decision, Greenspan stated:
“DEA denied this FOIA request citing “Exemptions 6 & 7(C)” and refusing to admit that records exist. Yet these exemptions cannot and do not apply, and the records clearly exist because Illinois Northern District Court Case No. 1:93-cv-04483 Document 1-1, the Affidavit of IRS CI Agent Kevin Moss, states as such.
“FOIA Exemptions 6 & 7(C) are inapplicable for two reasons. First, Lee Andrew Edwards is dead, with the Bureau of Prisons confirming his death on June 9, 2003. His privacy interests are no longer at issue. See USDOJ document “FOIA UPDATE: FOIA COUNSELOR: EXEMPTION 6 AND EXEMPTION 7(C): STEP-BY-STEP DECISIONMAKING” (“To qualify, the information must involve the privacy interest of an identifiable, ***living*** person.”).
“Second, Bola Tinubu is a current presidential candidate in the nation of Nigeria. Accordingly he has no legitimate privacy interest in this material. To the extent he might it is overwhelmingly outweighed by the public interest in his history with narcotrafficking.”
Needless to say, again, the appeals met a brick wall.
Having exhausted all avenues for redress, Greenspan filed the suit on June 23, 2023, at the District Of Columbia District Court with case no. 1:23-cv-01816-BAH.
See a copy of the court document below:
The date of the hearing is yet to be communicated.
Reacting to the intrigues involved in the applications and the denials, as well as the appeals and the refusals, a legal luminary, who pleaded anonymity, wondered the interest of the United States in this matter.
“What is the United States’ interest in a matter involving Tinubu? Why are they shielding his record?
“Why is the United States bent on frustrating investigations into the matter involving Tinubu?
“What are they hiding from Nigerians?” he asked.
He, therefore, urged Nigerians to raise serious concerns and apply pressure on the developments in the United States and figure out what their interest is and why they are shielding Tinubu. Read more.
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