President Bola Tinubu has asked a United States federal court to stop the further release of records held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration relating to past investigations involving him.
Tinubu, through his lawyers, filed the request before the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, August 28, 2026.
The records are being sought by Aaron Greenspan, an American transparency activist and founder of PlainSite, through a Freedom of Information Act case involving several US government agencies. His requests include records from the FBI and DEA relating to investigations from the early 1990s, including the FBI’s file on Tinubu and interview records covering 1992 and 1993.
Tinubu has joined the case as an intervenor and is asking the court to reject Greenspan’s request for further disclosure.
His lawyers argued that the remaining records should stay withheld or redacted, citing privacy protections under US law. They also argued that the release of the records would not serve a sufficient public interest to override those protections.
The legal dispute followed an earlier ruling by US District Judge Beryl Howell in April 2025, which ordered the FBI and DEA to search for and process records that were not exempt from disclosure. The agencies subsequently released thousands of pages of documents, some of which contained redactions.
Greenspan later sought the release of additional material, arguing that the documents already provided did not fully satisfy his requests.
The FBI has separately asked the court to keep some records from public disclosure, arguing that releasing certain information could endanger individuals and reveal law-enforcement methods.
In a recent filing, Tinubu’s lawyers maintained that the president’s privacy rights should be protected and asked the court not to compel the release of the remaining records.
The case relates to records concerning investigations involving Tinubu during his time in the United States in the early 1990s. The existence and content of some of the records have been the subject of public and legal disputes, while the current proceedings concern whether additional records should be released under the Freedom of Information Act.
The US court is expected to determine whether the remaining records should be released, retained in their redacted form or withheld under the exemptions relied upon by the government and Tinubu’s legal team.