President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has urged a United States federal court to reject a motion seeking the further release of records relating to investigations allegedly involving him, arguing that the documents are protected by privacy provisions under US law.
Tinubu, who joined the case as an intervenor, made the submission in a response filed on Friday before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
He asked the court to deny Aaron Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to retain existing redactions and withholdings in records already released.
Greenspan, founder of PlainSite, had filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking records concerning Tinubu, including the “entire FBI file” on the Nigerian president and FBI interview records from 1992 to 1993.
The case arose from 12 FOIA requests Greenspan filed with six US federal agencies for investigative records relating to a Chicago heroin-trafficking ring that operated in the early 1990s. Tinubu was among four individuals named in the requests.
In April 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA had improperly refused to confirm or deny whether they possessed records relating to Tinubu.
She ordered the agencies to search for and process non-exempt records responsive to Greenspan’s requests.
The FBI and DEA subsequently produced thousands of documents, some of which contained redactions, along with a Vaughn index explaining the basis for certain withholdings.
Greenspan later asked the court to order further disclosure, arguing that the records released did not adequately satisfy his requests.
TINUBU: FOIA IS NOT A TOOL FOR EXPOSING PRIVATE INFORMATION
In his latest response, Tinubu argued that FOIA is designed to provide information about government activities and not to expose private information about individuals contained in government files.
“Plaintiff’s motion should be denied because FOIA is not a tool for obtaining information the government collected about private individuals,” the filing states.
Tinubu’s lawyers argued that Greenspan’s requests primarily seek information about the president rather than information that would reveal how the US government or its agencies performed their official duties.
They cited a 1989 US Supreme Court decision holding that disclosure of records concerning private citizens generally reveals little about government operations.
The legal team also argued that the redacted material is protected under FOIA Exemption 7(C), which covers law-enforcement records where disclosure could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, as well as under the US Privacy Act.
According to the filing, the FBI and DEA “properly redacted or withheld exempt information” from the records provided to Greenspan.
‘GLOMAR RULING DID NOT REMOVE PRIVACY RIGHTS’
Tinubu’s lawyers rejected Greenspan’s argument that Judge Howell’s 2025 decision lifting the FBI and DEA’s “Glomar” responses meant that the president no longer had a privacy interest in the contents of the investigative files.
A Glomar response allows a government agency to refuse to confirm or deny whether responsive records exist.
The filing argued that Howell had distinguished between Tinubu’s privacy interest in keeping confidential the fact that he was investigated and his separate privacy interest in the contents of any investigative files.
According to Tinubu’s lawyers, the earlier ruling addressed the first issue and did not determine whether the contents of investigative records should subsequently be disclosed.
They maintained that the judge had specifically recognised the possibility of protecting the contents of investigative files through individual withholdings and redactions.
The lawyers further argued that the fact that some information about Tinubu’s past had entered the public domain did not eliminate his privacy interests in undisclosed details contained in government records.
‘NO RECOGNISED PUBLIC INTEREST IN DISCLOSURE’
Tinubu’s legal team also challenged Greenspan’s argument that there is a public interest in obtaining the records because Tinubu is Nigeria’s president.
The filing argued that public curiosity about Tinubu’s background, political career or fitness for office does not constitute the type of public interest recognised under FOIA.
“Plaintiff’s interest in an individual or that individual’s activities is not a ‘public interest’ that FOIA recognizes,” the lawyers argued.
They said Greenspan’s filings demonstrated that his primary objective was to obtain information about Tinubu rather than examine the conduct of the FBI, DEA or other government agencies.
The lawyers also rejected suggestions of a secret prosecution or cover-up, describing such claims as “unsubstantiated allegations” that cannot, on their own, justify disclosure of law-enforcement records concerning an individual.
They argued that Greenspan had not presented sufficient evidence to establish government impropriety.
TINUBU SEEKS TO RETAIN REDACTIONS
The president’s lawyers also opposed Greenspan’s challenges to the FBI’s search efforts, the DEA’s Vaughn index, the agencies’ reliance on FOIA exemptions and their handling of segregable information.
They argued that these issues should be considered in the context of what they described as Greenspan’s overarching objective of obtaining documents containing Tinubu’s name.
“If this Court finds that Plaintiff cannot use FOIA to mine information in government files about a private individual, he should not be able to access documents with Intervenor’s ‘name on them,’” the filing states.
Tinubu is therefore asking the court to deny Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and permit the FBI and DEA to maintain their existing redactions and withholdings.
HOW THE CASE STARTED
Greenspan filed the FOIA requests in 2022 and 2023, seeking records from the CIA, FBI, DEA, Internal Revenue Service, Executive Office for United States Attorneys and Department of State.
The requests concerned investigative records relating to a Chicago drug-trafficking case and named Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande and Abiodun Agbele.
Several agencies initially issued Glomar responses, stating that they could neither confirm nor deny the existence of responsive records.
In her April 2025 ruling, however, Howell held that the FBI and DEA had failed to establish a sufficient privacy interest in keeping secret the fact that Tinubu had been the subject of a criminal investigation.
She ordered both agencies to search for and process non-exempt records, while sustaining the CIA’s Glomar response.
Tinubu has consistently denied any wrongdoing linked to the allegations and has opposed the disclosure of information he considers protected by applicable US privacy laws.
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