The Federal Bureau of Investigation has asked a United States court for permission to submit a confidential declaration explaining why it is withholding some records relating to allegations linking President Bola Tinubu to a drug-trafficking investigation.
The FBI made the request in an application dated August 20 before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The agency said it could not publicly disclose the full reasons for withholding some of the information.
An ex parte, in camera declaration is a submission made privately to a judge for consideration and is not placed on the public record.
The application was published on X on Thursday by Von Batten-Montague-York, a Washington-based lobbying firm recently hired by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.
The FBI said it had invoked various exemptions under the US Freedom of Information Act in response to requests for records relating to Tinubu from 1992 to 1993.
According to the agency, releasing the withheld information could disclose law enforcement investigation techniques and procedures and could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of an individual.
The FBI said one of the requests, numbered 1588244-000, sought the entire FBI file for Tinubu, identified in the request as Nigeria’s President-Elect as of February 2023.
A second request, numbered 1593615-000, sought FBI 302 interview records involving Tinubu from an FBI case between 1992 and 1993.
The agency said it invoked Freedom of Information Act exemptions 6, 7(C), 7(D), 7(E) and 7(F) in relation to the requests.
The FBI said it had determined that it could not publicly provide the full basis for applying exemptions 7(E) and 7(F) to some of the withheld information.
It therefore asked the court to allow it to submit an ex parte, under-seal declaration explaining the basis for the withholding.
The agency said that, if granted permission, it would submit the confidential declaration before August 28.
The plaintiff in the case is Aaron Greenspan, an American businessman and founder of PlainSite.
The development followed a request by the US Department of Justice for an additional 10-day extension to respond to a court order concerning the release of records linked to allegations involving Tinubu.
Judge Beryl Howell, however, granted only four additional days, moving the deadline to August 21.
Tinubu, through his legal team, subsequently joined the DOJ’s request for an additional 10-day extension, but Howell declined the request.
Between 2022 and 2023, Greenspan filed 12 Freedom of Information Act requests with six US federal agencies, seeking records from investigations into a Chicago heroin ring that operated in the early 1990s.
He sought records concerning four individuals he said were linked to the drug ring, including Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Adegboyega Akande and Abiodun Agbele.
Five of the agencies initially responded that they could neither confirm nor deny the existence of the requested records.
Dissatisfied with the responses, Greenspan approached the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy, which upheld the agencies’ refusal to confirm or deny the existence of the records.
On June 12, 2023, Greenspan filed a lawsuit challenging the agencies’ use of what is known as a Glomar response to his FOIA requests.
A Glomar response is an official refusal by a US government agency to confirm or deny whether requested records exist.
The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service, Executive Office for United States Attorneys and Department of State were initially named as defendants, while the Central Intelligence Agency was later added.
In April 2025, Howell ruled that the responses issued by the FBI and DEA were improper and ordered that they be lifted.
The judge held that the agencies had failed to establish sufficient privacy interests to justify keeping secret the fact that Tinubu was a subject of a criminal investigation.
Howell also held that the FBI and DEA had not provided sufficient evidence to justify maintaining their Glomar responses.