The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will not be releasing documents today related to an alleged drug case involving Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, as previously expected.
Back in April, Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the agencies to make the documents public by May 2, 2025. However, on Thursday, May 1, both the FBI and DEA filed a joint report asking the court for an additional 90 days to complete their document production.
This request is part of an ongoing lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), initiated in June 2023 by transparency advocate Aaron Greenspan. The suit seeks access to U.S. federal investigation files connected to a 1990s drug trafficking and money laundering case in Chicago, allegedly tied to Tinubu and several others.
Records on Tinubu’s drug case
Court records show that between 2022 and 2023, Greenspan submitted 12 FOIA requests to various federal agencies, including the FBI, DEA, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), CIA, State Department, and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices in Illinois and Indiana. The requests centre on four individuals: Bola Tinubu, Mueez Akande, Lee Andrew Edwards, and Abiodun Agbele, who are all suspected of having links to the alleged drug operation.
In their latest update to the court, the FBI and DEA stated that they had begun searching for the relevant non-exempt records but needed more time to finish reviewing and preparing the documents for release.
“The FBI and DEA have initiated their searches for responsive, non-exempt, reasonably segregable portions of records requested by the plaintiff and anticipate completing their searches in ninety days,” the joint status report noted.
Greenspan, however, strongly opposed the extension. He argued that the agencies have already delayed the process for years and insisted that they should be able to produce at least some unredacted records within a week.
“The defendants offer no valid reason for why it should take three more months to finish this task,” Greenspan said, emphasising that many of the documents have already been identified.
