Twelve requests went to six American agencies and components. By summary judgment three were still defending a refusal to confirm or deny that any records existed. A federal judge lifted two of those refusals, sustained the third, and held that the Department of Justice had already acknowledged the investigation in a court filing of its own.
During 2022 and 2023, Aaron Greenspan submitted twelve requests under the Freedom of Information Act to six agencies and components concerning four named individuals. By summary judgment, five requests remained at issue, involving Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Abiodun Agbele. He commenced Civil Action No. 23-1816 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2023, and the court later permitted President Tinubu to participate as an intervenor. The Executive Office for United States Attorneys, the Department of State and the Internal Revenue Service were dismissed by stipulation in August 2024, before the summary-judgment ruling [Documented].
Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled on April 8, 2025, granting in part and denying in part each side’s motion for summary judgment. Three agencies were still defending Glomar responses. She lifted those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration and ordered both to search for and process non-exempt responsive records. The response of the Central Intelligence Agency was sustained, and summary judgment entered for that agency on Exemptions 1 and 3 [Documented].
Since that order, hundreds of pages have been produced with portions redacted. What those pages carry, and what the redactions cover, is the subject of Parts 3 and 4 [Documented].
Two features of this litigation separate it from everything else in the series. The forum is American, the law applied is American, and no Nigerian institution is a party to it. The subject is the sitting President of Nigeria, who applied to join and was admitted [Documented + Inference].
What the requests actually sought
The material sought includes the Bureau’s file on Tinubu, FBI Form 302 interview records covering 1992 and 1993, and records associated with a 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding in the United States concerning approximately $460,000. An FD-302 is an agent-prepared report memorializing an interview or other investigative activity, and it is not a verbatim transcript, which is why the date range matters [Documented].
The reason the two responses fell is the most important holding in the case. The court found that the Department of Justice had officially acknowledged that Tinubu was the subject of a criminal investigation involving both the Bureau and the Administration. That acknowledgment came from an affidavit of an Internal Revenue Service special agent, incorporated by reference into the 1993 forfeiture complaint, which the court held bound the Department and its components alike [Documented].
What this volume will not assert
Three propositions stay outside this volume. Guilt is not attributed to any named person, a civil forfeiture decree is not treated as a conviction, and the withholding of a record is not treated as evidence of its contents. Proof for any of them is absent from this file, and advancing one without proof would give every defender of the record a reason to discard the rest.
This review located no criminal charge against Bola Ahmed Tinubu arising from the 1993 proceeding, and no conviction. Civil forfeiture in the United States proceeds against property and not against a person, and a decree forfeiting funds establishes no criminal liability of anyone who claimed them [Documented + Inference].
The Nigerian Presidency has stated publicly that the litigation is a civil matter and not a criminal one. It has said that the release or withholding of records under the Act does not by itself establish criminal liability, and that the case lies within the control of Judge Howell [Documented]. That characterization of the FOIA proceeding is correct as far as it goes, and Part 5 of this volume examines what it leaves out.
Earlier in this series the case was treated as a pending suit in which the threshold defense had not been resolved. That description is now out of date. The threshold defense was resolved in April 2025 against the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration, the response of the Central Intelligence Agency being sustained, which moved the litigation to a second stage where the fight is about specific records, specific exemptions and specific justifications [Documented + Inference].
The question this volume asks
The government has already been told by a federal judge that it could not lawfully refuse to confirm whether records exist. Pages have been produced, and the President of Nigeria has appeared through counsel to argue that what remains withheld should stay withheld. What standard governs that argument, and whether the record already public defeats it, is the question these five installments work through.
Five installments follow, in the order adopted by this investigation. Part 1 examines the 1993 decree and what an instrument of that kind can and cannot establish. Glomar and the ruling that defeated it come next. Part 3 examines the production and the two separate questions it raises about search and justification. After that, Exemption 7(C), the Privacy Act, and one sentence in the intervenor’s filing that concedes more than it argues. The last installment takes the deadlines now running.
One practical consequence follows for readers in Nigeria. The documents at issue are held by American agencies, governed by American statute, and supervised by an American judge, so no Nigerian institution can order their release and none has been asked to. What Nigerian institutions can do is seek the same material through mutual legal assistance, and whether any has done so is examined at Part 5 [Documented + Inference].
A note on method
Consequential propositions carry Documented, Alleged, Inference or Documented plus Inference, placed at the end of the proposition classified. Records that could not be retrieved appear under a heading of their own, and nothing is inferred from them in either direction.
Where this file reports that no record was located, the statement describes a defined search of publicly accessible sources, the published output of the court and the parties, and Nigerian and American reporting, with a cutoff of September 7, 2026. Court filings are cited by document number and filing date where the number is known. A filing known only through reporting is cited to the named report, and the filing itself is listed as not retrieved [Documented + Inference].
This volume exists for a narrow purpose. It does not exist to prove that a president is a criminal, and it could not do so on any material available to it. It exists because a United States court has been asked whether the public may see what its own government holds. That answer has been fought over for four years, and the person resisting disclosure governs more people than any other head of state in Africa [Inference].
Evidence Docket
DOCUMENTARY RECORD
Sahara Reporters. (2026, August 21). FBI says release of withheld Tinubu records could endanger life, seeks secret court review.
PRIMARY AUTHORITIES
Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, in particular § 552(a)(4)(B) and § 552(b)(6), (b)(7)(C) to (b)(7)(F).
Greenspan v. Executive Office for United States Attorneys, No. 23-1816 (BAH), ECF No. 48, pp. 15-26, 2025 WL 1040834 (D.D.C. Apr. 8, 2025) (Howell, J.).
RECORDS NOT RETRIEVED
The docket sheet in Civil Action No. 23-1816; the release schedules filed under the order; and the pages produced by the FBI and the DEA.
Any request for mutual legal assistance made by a Nigerian authority concerning the 1993 proceeding or the records now in issue. None of the foregoing was located, and no finding is drawn from their absence.
Right of reply: no advance notice was given. Any person or institution named in this investigation may respond after publication. A substantive response will be published, and any demonstrated factual error will be corrected. The channel is [email protected] and it remains open for as long as this entry stands on the register.
