The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release records related to their investigations into Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s alleged involvement in drug trafficking.
In a ruling delivered on April 8, 2025, District Judge Beryl Howell directed the FBI and DEA to “search for and process non-exempt records” responsive to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests made to the agencies.
The court also struck down the agencies’ previous use of “Glomar responses”, a term used when government agencies neither confirm nor deny the existence of requested records. The judge ruled that such responses are no longer acceptable in this case.
The FOIA requests in question were submitted in 2022 and 2023 by Aaron Greenspan, an American, and founder of the transparency platform PlainSite. Greenspan sought records related to Tinubu and others — Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele — allegedly linked to a drug trafficking network.
Greenspan filed 12 FOIA requests with six federal agencies, including the FBI, DEA, Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Executive Office of United States Attorneys (EOUSA), seeking information about a Chicago-based heroin ring from the early 1990s.
According to court documents, five agencies responded with Glomar’s replies, stating they could neither confirm nor deny the existence of relevant records.
Dissatisfied with the responses, Greenspan filed a lawsuit challenging the agencies’ refusal to release information.
In her judgment, Judge Howell ruled that the Glomar responses issued by the FBI and DEA were “improper and must be lifted.” She said the agencies failed to demonstrate a valid privacy interest in concealing that Tinubu had been the subject of a criminal investigation.
Howell further noted that the FBI and DEA had already officially acknowledged their investigations into Tinubu in connection with a drug trafficking operation, thereby undermining any claimed need for secrecy.
“The public interest in disclosure outweighs any claimed privacy concerns,” Howell stated. “Since neither the FBI nor the DEA has shown a valid privacy interest in withholding the fact of Tinubu’s investigation, their Glomar responses cannot be sustained.”
Responding to the ruling, President Tinubu’s spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, downplayed its significance in a social media post.
“There is nothing new to reveal,” he wrote. “The FBI report by Agent Moss and the DEA documents have been publicly available for over 30 years. These reports do not indict the Nigerian president. The legal team is reviewing the court’s decision.”
