Tinubu Moves to Block US Release of FBI, DEA Records

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President Bola Tinubu has filed a motion in a US federal court seeking to stop the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the DEA from releasing records tied to a 1993 civil forfeiture case in which he surrendered roughly $460,000, according to his legal team.

The filing intervenes in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan against the three US agencies. Greenspan is seeking the FBI’s complete file on Tinubu, including Form 302 interview records from 1992 and 1993 — the standard form FBI agents use to document witness and subject interviews.

What the 1993 case actually was

The underlying case dates to 1993, when the US Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture action in the Northern District of Illinois, alleging that proceeds from a Nigeria-based heroin trafficking network had passed through bank accounts associated with Tinubu. Tinubu settled by surrendering approximately $460,000. He was never criminally charged or convicted in connection with the case, and has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

That distinction — a civil forfeiture settlement with no criminal charge — has shaped the entire three-decade life of this story. It’s specific enough to be documented in a real US federal court record, but resolved in a way that never required Tinubu to answer the underlying allegations in a criminal trial.

Tinubu’s legal argument

In a 16-page filing, Tinubu’s lawyers argue that releasing the requested records would violate his privacy interests as a private citizen at the time of the original case, stating that “regardless of the prior disclosure in the forfeiture proceeding, Intervenor retains a privacy interest in potential disclosure of the investigative files sought by Plaintiff.” The filing does not dispute that the 1993 case occurred — it argues specifically that the FBI’s underlying investigative file, distinct from the public forfeiture record, should stay sealed.

The cost of an unresolved record

A civil forfeiture settlement from three decades ago, still generating fresh litigation today, is its own kind of cost: it means a sitting Nigerian president is fighting a US privacy battle over records that a FOIA requester believes the Nigerian and American public have a right to see, rather than the matter having been closed definitively one way or the other in 1993. Every renewed court filing keeps the allegation itself in circulation, whatever the legal outcome, and gives critics of Tinubu’s government a recurring news cycle that has nothing to do with his actual record in office.

What resolution would look like

The FOIA suit is ongoing, and a US court will ultimately decide whether Tinubu’s privacy claim outweighs the public-interest test that FOIA litigation typically applies to law-enforcement records about public figures. A ruling that fully releases or fully protects the file would, either way, be the first definitive account from the FBI’s own investigative record — as opposed to the forfeiture settlement alone — of what US investigators found in 1992 and 1993. Until that happens, the story resets to a new news cycle every time either side files in court, which is precisely what has happened again this week.