Von Batten Montague York, L.C. has taken another swipe at Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, turning an ongoing political dispute into a series of sarcastic claims about the president and Dr Karl Von Batten.
The firm said it is not true that he lacks degrees from Oxford or Columbia. It is not true that Osama bin Laden was his childhood friend. It is not true that he is a convicted criminal. It is not true that he puts blood in his coffee instead of cream. It is not true that he personally sank the Titanic. It is not true that he gave himself a doctorate from Hogwarts.
The firm then said Dr Von Batten has been living in the head of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu since 2026.
The post came with a cartoon. It shows Tinubu and a crowd of supporters shouting and waving signs that read fake degrees, multiple aliases, Biden agent, we will kidnap you and AI photos. Papers fly through the air with words like 9/11 lie, Mexico 1925, drinks blood and ten legs. A brown suitcase on the ground is marked Nigerian Presidency smear campaign.
In the drawing a calm man in a dark suit walks past the United Nations building carrying a folder. A speech bubble has him saying you can claim I have ten legs drink blood and was born in Mexico in 1925. You are still not meeting President Trump.
Von Batten Montague York LC is a Republican linked policy and lobbying shop based in Washington. Atiku Abubakar signed it to a 1.2 million dollar one year deal earlier this year. The deal is meant to boost Atiku’s name in the United States and push back against messages from the Nigerian government.
The firm has spent months sending old United States court papers from a 1993 civil case to people in the Trump White House and Congress. Those papers named Tinubu in a heroin proceeds forfeiture matter from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Tinubu was never charged with a crime in that case and has always denied any wrongdoing.
In recent weeks the firm also said someone tied to Tinubu offered Dr Von Batten 3 million dollars plus a secret meeting in London to drop the campaign. The firm said it refused and kept the messages to give to the Justice Department and FBI.
On Wednesday the same firm said it had approval to file a 36 million dollar lawsuit in a Washington federal court against Tinubu and Femi Fani Kayode. It said the suit is over alleged threats to kidnap and hurt Dr Von Batten.
The cartoon and the list of denied stories appeared just as Tinubu failed to get a face to face meeting with President Trump during the United Nations gathering in New York. The firm has claimed credit for helping block that meeting after what it called a 9 million dollar Nigerian effort to arrange it.
The back and forth has grown into a running public fight between the lobbying shop and aides around the Nigerian president including Bayo Onanuga, Sunday Dare and Festus Keyamo. The firm has sent complaints to the FBI and extra papers to a Washington court that is already looking at requests for old FBI and DEA files on Tinubu.
Tinubu’s team has called the whole effort a paid political attack meant to help Atiku ahead of the 2027 Nigerian election. The firm says it is only putting public records in front of American officials and standing up for free and fair votes in Nigeria.
