Lawyers representing President Bola Tinubu have contested moves to have his unredacted records with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency released to the public.
The president in fillings before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by his lawyers published on Saturday, noted that the US Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act precluded disclosure and there was no public interest in the matter.
The President noted that the US Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act precluded disclosure and there was no public interest in the matter.
Tinubu also said there was no public interest to balance and the plaintiff had ulterior motives for demanding documents with his name on them.
But opposition parties in the country kicked against the move, saying Nigerians deserved to know about the President’s past.
His lawyers were identified as Christopher Carmichael, Victor Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi.
The President’s submission was in response to a request by an American transparency activist, Aaron Greenspan, which sought the disclosure of the records under the US Freedom of Information Act.
The controversy surrounding Tinubu’s US law-enforcement history became a major issue in the build up to the February 25, 2023 presidential election after documents relating to a 1993 US civil forfeiture proceeding surfaced.
A US District Court in Illinois had ordered the forfeiture of $460,000 held in an account in Tinubu’s name after the US alleged that the funds represented proceeds of narcotics trafficking or were involved in prohibited financial transactions.
The All Progressives Congress, however, maintained during the presidential election petition proceedings that the case was a civil forfeiture proceeding and not a criminal conviction.
The Labour Party and then presidential candidate Peter Obi argued that the forfeiture amounted to a disqualifying conviction under the Constitution.
The Presidential Election Petition Court held in September 2023 that the petitioners had failed to establish that Tinubu was arrested, arraigned, convicted or sentenced in a criminal case in the US.
Ever since, the opposition and other interested parties have been making moves to get official information relating to Tinubu from the US.
Greenspan had argued that his requests concerned the “sitting President of Nigeria…” and “a nation of over 230 million people whose daily lives are directly affected by President Tinubu’s decisions”.
In his rejection of the FOIA request, Tinubu, according to the filings by his lawyer, urged the US District Court to reject the bid because it amounted to an attempt to obtain private information for political purposes in Nigeria.
The President’s lawyers noted that the request was made to provide access to information about government activities.
They specifically rejected the argument that the interest of Nigerians in Tinubu’s background constituted public interest recognised by US laws.
The team also rejected an argument on the President’s fitness for office, stating that “the asserted ‘public interest in Tinubu’s own fitness for office’ is not an interest FOIA recognises or one that needs to be balanced.”
The lawyers further argued that the records sought were protected by privacy provisions under FOIA and the US Privacy Act.
“The redacted information sought by the plaintiff is exempt from disclosure,” they stated, citing Exemption 7(C), which protects personal information contained in law-enforcement records.
The President’s legal team relied on a 1989 US Supreme Court decision, Department of Justice v Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, to argue that FOIA was designed to allow the public to know “what the government is up to” rather than provide access to information about private citizens.
They argued that Greenspan was seeking “disclosure of information about private citizens that is accumulated in various governmental files,” which, they said, “reveals little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.”
Tinubu’s lawyers also challenged what they described as the political dimension of the request, arguing that Greenspan’s filings demonstrated a focus on obtaining documents containing the President’s name.
“All of plaintiff’s other critiques should be viewed in the context of plaintiff’s overarching goal,” the lawyers stated.
They added that Greenspan’s filings “overwhelmingly demonstrate that his singular focus is obtaining documents with intervenor’s ‘name on them.’”
The President’s legal team urged the court not to allow the FOIA process to become a means of obtaining information about a private individual simply because of his political position.
“If this court finds that the plaintiff cannot use FOIA to mine information in government files about a private individual, he should not be able to access documents with the intervenor’s name on them,’” the lawyers stated.
They further challenged claims that the records could reveal a secret prosecution or an agreement by US authorities not to prosecute Tinubu.
The team described such claims as speculative and unsupported by evidence.
The lawyers added, “Unsubstantiated allegations are easy to assert in filings, but insufficient to justify a request for information about an individual.”
They stated that Greenspan had failed to provide evidence capable of establishing that alleged government wrongdoing had occurred, as required by US case law.
“Plaintiff has not carried his burden to obtain law enforcement records that mention or identify a private individual,” they stated.
The President’s legal team also disputed the argument that his privacy interests had been extinguished because some information relating to the historical investigation had previously become public.
Greenspan had argued that the general nature of the investigation had been in the public domain since 1993.
But Tinubu’s lawyers said the 1993 forfeiture proceeding, including an affidavit filed in the case, did not disclose details or the outcome of any possible criminal investigation involving the President.
The lawyers maintained that even where portions of information had previously appeared in public records, an individual could retain a privacy interest in details that remained undisclosed.
They consequently asked the court to deny Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and allow the FBI and DEA to maintain their redactions and withholding of the records.
Among the records sought are the “entire FBI file” on Tinubu and FBI Form 302 interview records involving him from 1992 to 1993.
The ongoing FOIA case concerns access to US government records and does not itself constitute a criminal prosecution or a finding that Tinubu committed a drug-trafficking offence.
(Ripples)