In a surprising development, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will not be releasing the long-anticipated records related to a drug investigation allegedly connected to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu as originally scheduled. The release was ordered by Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in April, with a deadline of May 2, 2025. However, on May 1, the two federal agencies filed a joint status report in court requesting an additional 90 days to complete their work, effectively postponing the release.
This legal case is the result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit initiated in June 2023 by U.S. transparency advocate Aaron Greenspan. His lawsuit seeks access to documents from several U.S. federal agencies that might shed light on an alleged drug trafficking and money laundering investigation dating back to the 1990s. The case reportedly involves Bola Tinubu and three other individuals: Mueez Akande, Lee Andrew Edwards, and Abiodun Agbele. From 2022 through 2023, Greenspan submitted a total of 12 FOIA requests to agencies including the FBI, DEA, IRS, CIA, and the U.S. State Department, as well as U.S. Attorneys’ Offices in Indiana and Illinois.
In the most recent court filing, the FBI and DEA stated that while they have begun reviewing documents relevant to the FOIA requests, they require three more months to complete the process. This justification, however, was met with strong opposition from Greenspan. He criticized the agencies for prolonging the matter and argued that enough documents had already been located. He urged the court to compel the FBI and DEA to either finalize the production of records by the following week or, at the very least, release the already-identified documents in their unredacted forms within that same timeframe, followed by the rest within two weeks. Greenspan contended that the agencies offered no clear reason why their document search and release process should take an additional 90 days.