President Bola Tinubu has asked a United States court to reject a request seeking the release of unredacted records relating to him held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In court filings submitted by his lawyers and published on Saturday, the Nigerian President argued that the documents should remain undisclosed, citing protections under the US Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act.
Tinubu’s legal team, comprising Christopher Carmichael, Victor Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi, also argued that releasing the records would serve no legitimate public interest and that the person seeking them had ulterior motives.
The filings were made in response to a request by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who approached the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeking access to the records under the Freedom of Information Act.
Tinubu’s lawyers urged the court to dismiss the request, arguing that the FOIA was not intended to provide private information for political purposes.
According to the President’s legal team, Greenspan’s application failed to establish a public interest sufficient to outweigh the privacy protections attached to the records.
They further disputed the suggestion that Nigerians’ interest in information about Tinubu’s past automatically amounted to the kind of public interest recognised under US law.
The lawyers maintained that the FOIA request was presented as an attempt to obtain information concerning government activities but, in their view, was actually aimed at obtaining private information about the Nigerian President for political purposes.
The legal challenge has attracted attention in Nigeria, particularly from opposition parties and political groups that have argued that citizens have a right to know more about Tinubu’s background.
The President, however, maintains that the requested documents are protected from disclosure and that the court should not allow the FOIA process to be used to obtain information that is otherwise shielded by US privacy laws.
