President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is facing renewed scrutiny over a long running Freedom of Information Act battle in the United States, after Washington based lobbying firm Von Batten Montague York warned that continued secrecy surrounding records linked to an old drug investigation could fuel public distrust in Nigeria.
The firm Von Batten Montague York, hired by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, said a long held view across Africa, the Middle East, and South America is that Western powers install or shield pliant leaders in order to control countries and resources. It said many Nigerians now place Tinubu in that category and treat the still sealed records on alleged heroin trafficking as the strings that keep him in place.
The presidency presented the Europe trip as annual leave. Special Adviser Bayo Onanuga said Tinubu would return to join the campaign for the January 2027 election. Aide Sunday Dare said the president needed rest after months of hard work and would still take daily briefings from ministers and security chiefs. Atiku and other critics called the timing tone deaf while hardship and insecurity persist at home. The lobbying firm framed the departure another way. It said Tinubu was running to friends in Europe while the heroin allegations grow.
The firm said the public may never know whether Tinubu traded Nigerian secrets or resources for protection. It argued that the Joe Biden era Justice Department effort to keep the records out of sight has become, for many Nigerians, further proof that Western governments are covering for him. Right or wrong, the secrecy is feeding the belief, the firm said.
The longer the files stay hidden, the firm added, the stronger the idea becomes that foreign powers hold something over Nigeria’s president. That mistrust will linger no matter how the Freedom of Information Act case against the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration ends. For that reason, the firm said Western governments must help make sure Nigeria’s coming presidential election is free and fair. Anything less, it warned, raises the chance that Nigeria follows Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
The dispute reaches back more than three decades. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, US investigators looked into a Nigeria linked heroin network operating through Chicago. A 1993 civil forfeiture case in Illinois named accounts tied to Tinubu, Adegboyega Mueez Akande, and Abiodun Agbele. The government said drug proceeds moved into US bank accounts opened and controlled by Tinubu. About $460,000 in an account in his name was forfeited. Tinubu was never criminally charged. He has long called the matter a civil settlement and denied trafficking.
American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan later filed a string of FOIA requests for FBI, DEA, Justice Department, and related files from that period, including what he described as Tinubu’s full FBI file and 1992 to 1993 interview reports. Several agencies first refused even to say whether records existed. In April 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington ruled that the FBI and DEA could not hide the fact that Tinubu had been a subject of a criminal investigation and ordered them to search and process records that the law does not exempt.
The case has not produced a full public dump. The FBI has asked the court for a private, sealed explanation of why some material must stay withheld. It cited law enforcement methods, privacy, informant protection, and possible danger to life. Tinubu joined the case as an intervenor, arguing that release would invade his privacy and that the request is being used to shape politics in another country. The lobbying firm says an FBI search turned up 399 pages tied to Tinubu and that those pages go far beyond a simple civil money case, pointing to lab tests, controlled buys, informants, grand jury work, surveillance, seizures, and IRS material. Those claims come from the firm’s reading of court filings. The full contents remain under seal.
The same firm has circulated more than 60 pages of old Justice Department papers to officials in the Donald Trump administration and on Capitol Hill. It has also said it wants a free and fair Nigerian vote and has contrasted Tinubu with Atiku, whom it calls a statesman with no US government document accusing him of drug crime. That pitch is paid political work. Public filings show Atiku retained the firm in 2026 on a reported $1.2 million contract to lift his standing in Washington and push back against the Nigerian government’s message there.
Nigerian officials and some commentators counter that the campaign twists a closed civil case into a live crime file, ignores NDLEA seizure and conviction numbers under Tinubu, and treats court secrecy rules as proof of a puppet deal. No US court has convicted Tinubu of trafficking. No public ruling has confirmed that he received immunity as an informant. The files that do exist are still being fought over page by page.
What is not in dispute is the political heat. A sitting president is on leave in Europe. An old American forfeiture case is back on the front page. A US judge has already said agencies cannot pretend the investigation never touched Tinubu. And a well funded opposition lobby in Washington is telling Western capitals that hidden records plus a flawed election could push Africa’s most populous country toward the same rupture that hit the Sahel.
The secrecy itself has become the story. Until more of the 399 pages, or whatever the court finally releases, reach the public in clear form, the puppet charge will keep spreading, the firm said, and trust in both Abuja and its Western partners will keep sinking.
