Tinubu Supports US Request for Extended Time on Drug Allegations Records

President Bola Tinubu has backed the US Department of Justice's request for a 10-day extension to respond to a court order. This order is about releasing records that connect him to drug trafficking claims.

A Washington-based lobbying firm called Von Batten-Montague-York, which works for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, shared this news in a post on Tuesday.

The firm noted that the US Justice Department “initiated action in federal court” asking for an extra 10 days.

But the US District Court in Columbia turned down this request. It only allowed the department four more days, stating that it must release the records by 21 August.

Later, the lobbying group shared a notice showing that Tinubu's legal team also joined the Justice Department in asking for more time.

In the notice filed with the US District Court, Tinubu's legal team aimed to match his response timeline with the defendants’.

“Intervenor joins Defendants’ motion for a 10-day extension of time to file response to the motion for summary judgment (DE 92), in as much as Intervenor requests that the responses remain on the same schedule,” it stated.

But District Judge Beryl Howell did not grant the full 10-day extension. According to Atiku’s lobbying firm, she maintained that 21 August remains the deadline for the US government and President Tinubu to respond.

The lobbying firm described Tinubu’s request as a way to delay and gain political influence in Washington.

They argued that Tinubu “wanted to use any delay to call upon his friends in DC to argue that the release of these files would harm US-Nigeria relations” and affect his ability to work with the US on “terrorism and the killing of Christians in Northern Nigeria.”

“We believe that any U.S. government personnel who improperly attempt to interfere with the judicial or FOIA process on behalf of #Nigerian President #Tinubu to prevent the lawful release of these records should be exposed and fired,” it added.

The Case Against Tinubu

In April 2025, the district court ordered US law enforcement agencies to release confidential information linked to Tinubu's alleged drug trafficking during a “purported federal investigation in the 1990s.” This investigation led to Tinubu forfeiting some money to the US government in a civil case.

The court's order came two years after an American, Aaron Greenspan, filed a suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). He sought information about a joint investigation into a Chicago heroin ring that operated in the 1990s.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Greenspan wanted criminal investigative records about four named individuals “allegedly associated with the drug ring: Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele.”

This issue came up during the 2023 election, when Tinubu became president. It was also significant at the Presidential Election Petition Court, where his opponents, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, questioned his eligibility to run for Nigeria’s presidency. The election court, however, dismissed their suits and confirmed Tinubu's election.

This paper also noted that the agencies provided “Glomar responses”, refusing to confirm or deny whether the requested records exist. Greenspan challenged those responses at the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP).

He accused the agencies of breaching the FOIA by not releasing documents about the purported federal investigations into Tinubu and Abiodun Agbele.

But the OIP supported the agencies’ refusal.

Three days later, Greenspan filed an emergency motion to compel US agencies to produce records but was turned down again.

In 2025, Judge Howell ruled partly in favor of Greenspan’s case. The judge stated that the ‘Glomar’ responses from the FBI and DEA are “improper and must be lifted.” He added that the FBI and DEA failed to prove they properly invoked FOIA.

Howell noted that since it was clear Tinubu was a subject of an investigation by the FBI and DEA, “the claim that the Glomar responses were necessary to protect this information from public disclosure is at this point neither logical nor plausible.”