Lawyers for Nigerian President Bola Tinubu have asked a US federal court to keep old FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) records about him sealed from public view.
In a court filing dated August 28, 2026, Tinubu’s legal team pushed back against a request by Aaron Greenspan, who is trying to force the release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
The lawyers made their position clear in the filing, arguing that the events in question happened long before Tinubu held any public office. “Regardless, Intervenor should retain his full privacy interests because he was not a public official in 1993,” the brief states. It further adds that the request seeks “three decades old records pertaining to events that occurred when Intervenor was a student.”
The legal team argues that simply becoming president does not erase a person’s right to privacy regarding their earlier, private life.
Tinubu’s lawyers are relying on a specific rule, known as FOIA Exemption 7(C), which allows agencies to hide law enforcement information if releasing it would unfairly invade someone’s personal life. They also point to the Privacy Act as another solid reason to protect this information. They back this up with past court rulings, showing that public officials do not forfeit their personal privacy just because of their current job.
They stressed that the freedom of information law is meant to expose government actions, not to satisfy public curiosity about a foreign individual. “The Nigerian public’s general interest… are not the kind of interest the law is designed to advance,” the filing reads. They also noted that a 1993 civil forfeiture case only proved a forfeiture action existed, not the details of any criminal investigation or its results.
The legal team also rejected suggestions that the requests are justified by a suspected secret prosecution or cover-up, arguing that claims of government wrongdoing require actual evidence, not just guesses.
The records in question are tied to a federal investigation into a Chicago-area drug operation in the early 1990s. While a judge previously ordered the agencies to search for these files, this latest filing is just a legal argument, meaning the court has not yet made a final decision on what will be released.
Promise Idoko is Junior Reporter working with moderncrux He covers global politics and international affairs. Based in Nigeria,
