Presidency denies criminal proceedings against Tinubu in Washington
The presidency has dismissed reports suggesting that President Bola Tinubu is facing a criminal case in the United States, saying proceedings before a Washington, DC, court relate to a civil dispute over access to government records.
The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, made the clarification in a statement on Thursday, stressing that the proceedings have produced no finding of criminal wrongdoing against Tinubu.
The case was brought by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), following requests for records from several American government agencies.
Onanuga said it was misleading to describe the proceedings as a criminal trial involving the Nigerian president.
He said the matter was a civil records-disclosure dispute under FOIA and that Tinubu had neither been charged with a crime nor found guilty of criminal wrongdoing.
According to Onanuga, Greenspan submitted the FOIA requests in 2022 before commencing Civil Action No. 23-1816 in 2023.
Tinubu was subsequently permitted by the court to participate as an intervenor, allowing him to protect his privacy interests in the records being sought, Onanuga said.
The Central Intelligence Agency, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, Department of State, Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service have since been removed from the proceedings after obtaining summary judgment based on what is known as the “Glomar defence”.
The defence allows US government agencies, in certain circumstances, to neither confirm nor deny whether particular records exist.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration, however, remain parties to the case and have produced 399 pages of records. Some of the documents were redacted under exemptions permitted by US law.
Onanuga said the redactions were based on legal protections covering grand jury secrecy, attorney-client privilege, law enforcement interests and personal privacy.
Other records, he said, were withheld to protect confidential sources and investigative techniques used by law enforcement agencies.
The presidency said Tinubu had also invoked his privacy rights under a FOIA exemption in the proceedings.
Greenspan has until September 11 to respond to filings by the defendants and the intervenor, while the FBI, DEA and Tinubu have until September 18 to file further responses.