Tinubu’s US record dispute is a civil matter — Presidency

The Presidency has dismissed reports suggesting that President Bola Tinubu is facing a criminal case in the United States, insisting that an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in Washington, DC is strictly a civil records-disclosure dispute.

This was contained in a statement issued on Thursday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.

He said the case, filed by American transparency activist, Aaron Greenspan, before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, does not amount to a criminal trial and has not produced any finding of wrongdoing against Tinubu.

“For clarity, the matter is a civil records-disclosure dispute under the United States Freedom of Information Act. It is not a criminal case against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, nor has the court found him guilty of any criminal wrongdoing,” Onanuga said.

Giving a background to the matter, Onanuga said Greenspan filed the FOIA requests in 2022, seeking records from several US government agencies, before commencing Civil Action No. 23-1816 in 2023.

He noted that the court subsequently permitted Tinubu to join the proceedings as an intervenor.

The presidential aide said the Central Intelligence Agency, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, Department of State, Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service had since been removed from the case after the court granted them summary judgment on the “Glomar defence” — a standard defence in which an agency neither confirms nor denies the existence of records.