The Nigerian presidency has downplayed the recent US federal court ruling ordering the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release investigative files connected to President Bola Tinubu, saying the documents in question are decades old and contain no incriminating findings.

Reacting to the judgement delivered last Tuesday by Judge Beryl A. Howell of the United States District Court in Washington D.C., Bayo Onanuga, special adviser on information and strategy to Tinubu, in a post on X on Sunday, said: ?There is nothing new to be revealed. The report by Agent Moss of the FBI and the DEA report have been in the public space for more than 30 years. The reports did not indict the Nigerian leader.?

The response follows heightened public interest after the US court partially granted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, ordering the FBI and DEA to lift their long-standing ?Glomar? responses, neither confirming nor denying the existence of records, regarding Tinubu?s alleged links to a 1990s heroin trafficking and money laundering investigation in Chicago.

In her ruling, Judge Howell stated that the existence of such investigative records had already been acknowledged in a 1993 civil forfeiture case filed by the US Department of Justice, which named Tinubu and resulted in the forfeiture of funds from his US bank accounts. The judge found that this official disclosure nullified the FBI and DEA?s grounds for secrecy.

However, Onanuga insisted that the ruling changes nothing about Tinubu?s legal or political standing. ?The lawyers are examining the ruling,? he added.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was allowed to maintain its Glomar response, with the court agreeing that confirming or denying the existence of CIA records on Tinubu could compromise national security.

While the FBI and DEA must now process any responsive records for release, the presidency maintains that the matter has been long settled. Tinubu?s legal team has previously argued that the documents were related to civil forfeiture, not criminal conviction, and contain no evidence of wrongdoing.

The court has given the involved parties until May 2, 2025, to report on next steps, even as interest in the case remains high among journalists, political observers, and civil society both in Nigeria and abroad. (BusinessDay)