By Oyinkansayo Wole-Bodunde.
A court-ordered release of records related to a decades-old drug investigation involving Nigerian President Bola Tinubu will not be happening today as planned.
The FBI and DEA had been instructed to release the documents by May 2, 2025, but the agencies have requested a 90-day extension to complete their searches.
The case started from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by US transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who has been seeking access to investigative records from several US federal agencies regarding a 1990s drug trafficking and money laundering case in Chicago allegedly linked to Tinubu and others.
Greenspan had filed 12 separate FOIA requests between 2022 and 2023, targeting multiple agencies, including the FBI, DEA, IRS, and CIA. The requests focused on obtaining documents about four individuals: Tinubu, Mueez Akande, Lee Andrew Edwards, and Abiodun Agbele. The FBI and DEA claimed they need more time to complete their searches, stating, “The FBI and DEA have initiated their searches for responsive, non-exempt, reasonably segregable portions of records requested by the plaintiff and anticipate completing their searches in ninety days.”
However, Greenspan disagreed, proposing a much shorter deadline. He said, “Given the years-long delay already caused by the defendants and the fact that many responsive documents have already been identified, the plaintiff proposes that the FBI and DEA complete their searches and productions by next week, or, at the very least, produce unredacted versions of the already-identified documents by next week, with the remainder completed in 14 days. The defendants provide no rationale for why their search for documents should take 90 days.”
