The US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have indicated when they would make public Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s criminal and immigration records.
The FBI and the US State Department cited ‘unique circumstances’ for the inability to divulge the documents to the public in a court document obtained by media.
In response to a freedom of information request, US officials stated that even if they were to give the requested data of Nigeria’s president, it would take at least until January 2026.
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A civil action has now been filed in the subject before Judge Beryl Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington D.C, according to news reports.
Previously, an American public disclosure activist, Aaron Greenspan, had requested that Tinubu’s immigration and criminal records be released as soon as possible to the FBI, State Department, Department of Treasury, and Drug Enforcement Administration, among other federal and local agencies.
According to news reports, the demand was issued in response to Tinubu’s allegations in court that he did not commit any crimes during his stay in the United States.
President Tinubu is also believed to have claimed ownership of his identity, despite significant signs that he had previously changed names and education credentials.
Remember that there have been some issues surrounding President Tinubu’s true identity.
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The school credentials of the former Governor of Lagos State contain omissions and discrepancies that have yet to be revealed to the general public.
For example, while running for governor of Lagos in 1999, Nigeria’s president stated under oath to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that he attended the prestigious University of Chicago.
Tinubu has since been expelled from the university. Another American university, Chicago State University, acknowledged the attendance of a Bola Tinubu but did not specify whether it was the Nigerian president. According to school documents, a student named Bola Tinubu who attended the school in the 1970s was a female.
Tinubu also said under oath in 1999 that he attended primary and secondary schools in Lagos and Ibadan in the 1950s and 1960s, but he removed those claims from his most recent INEC application form ahead of the February general elections. He did not explain why he removed the claims, although there was no evidence that the primary school he said he attended ever existed in Nigeria.
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Tinubu was also listed as a cocaine trafficking money launderer in US court documents in 1993. He was said to have forfeited $460,000 at the time.
The records were crucial in an ongoing challenge to Mr Tinubu’s election as President of Nigeria before an election tribunal in Abuja. This spurred Mr. Greenspan, who runs PlainSite, a website that houses papers from American courts and institutions, to make several requests to U.S. officials in possession of documents that could assist clarify some of the critical problems troubling Nigerian minds.
The State Department is thought to have data indicating whether or not the person who sought for a visa and traveled as Bola Tinubu in the 1970s is the same person running Nigeria today.
However, the FBI is expected to throw more light on how Tinubu became involved in drugs in the U.S. and other criminal charges that he might have faced but which were not in public records.
“This office will not be able to respond within the 20 days provided by the statute due to unusual circumstances,” the State Department said in a May 15, 2023, letter to Mr Greenspan.
Previously on August 4, 2022, the FBI sent a message to Mr Greenspan, saying: “Please be advised that ‘unusual circumstances’ apply to the processing of your request.”
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However, on March 22, 2023, the FBI stated that it will endeavor to release all Tinubu-related materials in its possession, but not until January 2026 at the earliest. Other government agencies, like the Internal Revenue Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration, have stated that they will not provide the documents for the same reasons.
The FBI also said Mr Greenspan “failed to demonstrate that the requested information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the government.”
However, the activist quickly responded by describing how Tinubu’s drug forfeiture case in Chicago had drawn the most attention to his organization’s website in the previous year. There are almost 15 million records on the internet.
All of the agencies have now been ordered to court to explain why records relating to a Nigerian president were deemed uncommon and insignificant enough to be exposed to the public.
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On July 17, assistant U.S. attorney Jared Littman appeared as the lawyer representing all of the agencies and swiftly requested a delay in filing a response to the case, which was filed on June 12, 2023.
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