FBI Submits Bola Tinubu’s Criminal Records to Judge Beryl Howell Under Seal
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has hand-delivered records regarding President Bola Tinubu’s 1993 drug-trafficking and money-laundering case to Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stipulating that the files are for her eyes only, according to court filings seen by Ejes Gist News.
The FBI secretly submitted the records on Friday to avoid disobeying a direct court order while simultaneously sidelining transparency campaigner Aaron Greenspan, who had petitioned the bureau for the Nigerian leader’s law enforcement files through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
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The submission follows years of foot-dragging by the FBI on a FOI petition initially filed by Mr. Greenspan in 2023. Mr. Greenspan collaborated with Nigerian journalist David Hundeyin to file the legal petition in 2023. On Friday, the bureau ultimately complied with the court order directing it to release Mr. Tinubu’s records.
Court filings revealed that the records submitted as
“under seal, ex parte, in camera declarations were hand delivered to the Court on August 28, 2026 in compliance with this Court’s Minute Order dated August 20, 2026.”
Court Deadlines and Privacy Disputes
Ms. Beryl lost her patience with the FBI after the bureau missed several deadlines, offering various excuses as to why it could not immediately provide the requested records. She subsequently issued August 28 as the final ultimatum to the bureau, a move that prompted the FBI’s decision to comply by presenting the files “in camera” to the judge alone, without carrying along the petitioner.
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Earlier this week, the FBI claimed that submitting the records would violate Mr. Tinubu’s privacy rights. The law enforcement agency argued that the FOI framework was established specifically to screen the operations and records of government institutions, rather than those of private individuals.
For decades, Mr. Tinubu has avoided speaking publicly on the drug affair, refusing to clarify the ongoing controversies surrounding his involvement in a case that saw him forfeit hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United States government. Mr. Tinubu also actively sought to block the release of his records, asserting that his political rivals only sought to use them to discredit him in a Nigerian presidential election, while begging the court to protect his privacy rights.
In a related matter, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in 2023 released documents detailing Mr. Tinubu’s past encounter with American authorities over allegations of narcotics trafficking and money laundering.