The Presidency has clarified that the ongoing Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, litigation involving President Bola Tinubu before a United States federal court is a civil records-disclosure dispute and not a criminal case against the President.
It said: “For clarity, the matter is a civil records-disclosure dispute under the United States Freedom of Information Act. It is not a criminal case against President Tinubu, nor has the court found him guilty of any criminal wrongdoing.”
The Presidency in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga stated that the matter came up 23 years after the American Consulate in Lagos, in a letter dated February 4, 2003, informed the then Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, that a Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, records check found no criminal arrest records, wants or warrants for then-Governor Bola Tinubu.
According to the statement: “In 2022, Mr. Aaron Greenspan, who is known to work with Nigerian opposition figures including David Hundeyin and Atiku Abubakar, submitted FOIA requests to several United States government agencies seeking records relating to President Tinubu.
“After the agencies withheld certain records or declined to confirm or deny their existence, Mr. Greenspan commenced Civil Action No. 23-1816 before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2023.
“The court subsequently permitted President Tinubu to participate in the proceedings as an intervenor.
“During the proceedings, the defendants asserted the “Glomar defence,” a standard defence that US law enforcement agencies invoke from time to time. It simply means the government agency is not “in a position to deny or admit” the existence of an investigation.
“It protects government personnel and the techniques and sources law enforcement agencies use to investigate and prosecute crimes.
“Based on the invocation of this defence, the US District Court granted summary judgment in favour of the CIA, EOUSA, Department of State, Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, IRS.
“It ruled that they be removed from the proceedings, leaving aspects of the claims involving the FBIand the Drug Enforcement Administration for further consideration.
“In compliance with the court’s orders, the FBI and DEA produced 399 pages of records, with portions redacted under exemptions provided by United States law. The plaintiff challenged the FBI and DEA’s decisions to redact portions of the documents produced.
“The FBI and DEA, through the United States Department of Justice, USDoJ, pushed back against the plaintiff’s requests. The FBI and DEA rejected the application to produce the documents without redactions for the following reasons:
“Some of the documents are protected from being revealed to the public by law, for example, Grand Jury proceedings. The law exempts transcripts of Grand Jury proceedings from public disclosure.”
It further said: “The Pen Register Act also protects from disclosure information about certain court order(s) authorising or approving the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device.
(FOIA Exemption 3).
“Some of the documents fall squarely within the attorney-work product and attorney-client privileges. Some documents contain instances where FBI and DEA agents sought and/or received legal advice from USDoJ attorneys. (FOIA Exemption 5).”
Govt plotting to re-introduce subsidy through backdoor, Says ATIKU
Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has alleged that the President Bola Tinubu administration has entered “full panic mode” and was now plotting to reintroduce fuel subsidy through the back door ahead of the 2027 elections, after nearly four years of branding subsidy as economic sacrilege.
In a statementby his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, on Wednesday, Atiku said his team had received credible intelligence on the development, describing it as electoral desperation rather than compassion.
While accusing the government of pursuing a strategy that is “as cynical as it is obvious: impoverish Nigerians for three and a half years, wait until the 2027 election is within sight, then hurriedly return a fraction of the relief you denied them and expect gratitude at the ballot box,” Atiku said: “Tinubu wants Nigerians to forget the pain because an election is approaching. They will not.”
Atiku, who welcomed a call by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, for government intervention with domestic refiners to reduce petrol prices, said the association’s position had vindicated the policy principle behind his own plan to make energy affordable.
He said: “IPMAN has come late to this conversation, but it has come to the right conclusion. The association is now saying that government cannot simply stand aside while petrol prices punish Nigerians and that deliberate subsidy around domestic refining can help bring prices down. That is precisely the policy principle President Tinubu and his gang of jesters have spent weeks trying to ridicule.”
The former vice president said Tinubu’s argument had depended on “deliberately confusing the import-subsidy bazaar and a transparent, production-linked intervention that strengthens Nigerian refining and delivers measurable relief to Nigerian consumers.”
Illustrating the distinction, he said: “The difference between the import subsidy and the policy I have put before Nigerians is the difference between a farmer who harvests cassava, sells it all cheaply and then travels elsewhere to buy expensive garri for his family, and one who builds the capacity to process his cassava at home.”
He described it as “economic foolishness” for Nigeria to possess crude oil, fail to maximise its processing at home, and then tell citizens that unaffordable fuel is the price of reform, adding that his guiding principle was that “subsidy follows the barrel.”
Further, he said: “That is the Tinubu economy in one statistic. Petrol may appear cheap when converted into dollars and compared with richer countries, but Nigerians do not earn American or European salaries. A tomato seller experiences it when the truck bringing her produce charges more, her own transport fare rises and her customers arrive at the market with less money in their pockets.”
Atiku invited IPMAN to move beyond commentary and join his camp in implementing the policy from 2027, saying the marketers “know where distortions occur, where leakages hide and where good policy can be sabotaged between the refinery gate and the filling station.”
He said Tinubu now had two honourable options before him: “Apologise to Atiku Abubakar and, more importantly, to the Nigerian people for ridiculing a policy principle that major petroleum-sector players are beginning to recognise and quietly withdraw from the 2027 presidential contest or wait to be rejected at the polls in January.
“This is not about Tinubu or Atiku. It is about Nigerians. You cannot empty their pockets, call it reform, ridicule the ideas intended to make their lives affordable and then ask them to reward you with another four years.
“Tinubu may continue defending expensive petrol. We will continue building the coalition that will make Nigeria affordable again from 2027. Tinubu made Nigeria expensive. Atiku will make Nigeria affordable again,” he added.
