‘Presidency Lied by Omission’ — US Firm Reveals Key Details in Tinubu Drug Court Ruling

A United States-based political advisory and lobbying firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, has accused the Nigerian Presidency of presenting a misleading account of a US court ruling involving records linked to President Bola Tinubu and an investigation into alleged drug trafficking.

The firm made the allegation in a statement reacting to a post by presidential aide Sunday Dare, who highlighted a court decision blocking American businessman Aaron Greenspan from seeking discovery from Tinubu in a separate legal matter involving alleged hacking.

According to the firm, the discovery dispute was unrelated to Greenspan’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records held by US law enforcement agencies concerning an investigation from the early 1990s.

The firm argued that the Presidency’s account omitted other aspects of the FOIA proceedings, particularly decisions concerning records withheld by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

It said the court rejected the agencies’ requests for summary judgment concerning much of the information they had withheld, criticising what the firm described as generic and imprecise explanations for keeping records secret.

The firm also pointed to a 1993 asset-forfeiture affidavit already in the public domain, arguing that information appearing in that document could not simply be withheld under broad privacy or secrecy exemptions without adequate legal justification.

It further said the court found the DEA’s explanations for withholding certain pages inadequate and directed the agencies to review the records and provide more detailed justifications for any continued redactions by November 27, 2026.

The firm described the developments as a setback for the agencies’ efforts to withhold information and accused the Presidency of using the separate discovery ruling to distract from the continuing records-disclosure dispute.

The underlying FOIA lawsuit was brought by Greenspan, who sought records from US agencies relating to an investigation involving Tinubu and other individuals in the 1990s. The case concerns the disclosure of government records, rather than a criminal prosecution of the Nigerian president.

In April 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA could not continue using responses that neither confirmed nor denied the existence of relevant records, given the agencies’ prior acknowledgements of an investigation. The court directed them to search for and process non-exempt material.

Tinubu has not been criminally charged in connection with the US matter and has denied wrongdoing. The Presidency has maintained that the proceedings concern a civil records-disclosure dispute and do not amount to a finding of criminal guilt.

The latest exchange underscores the continuing dispute over which records should be made public and how the court’s decisions should be represented. The lobbying firm’s accusations against the Presidency remain its own characterisation of the events.