The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have jointly requested a 90-day extension to release documents tied to an alleged 1990s drug case involving Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This move was revealed in a status report filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday, May 1, 2025.
The legal effort to obtain these documents stems from multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests made by Aaron Greenspan, an American transparency advocate and founder of the public records site PlainSite.
Greenspan is seeking the release of files related to a Chicago-based drug trafficking investigation that allegedly involved Tinubu and three other individuals: Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele.
In the report filed with the court, the FBI and DEA noted that they have already begun their searches for any non-exempt records related to Greenspan’s FOIA requests. However, they said more time is required to finish processing the materials. Both agencies proposed a new timeline that would give them until the end of July 2025 to complete the work.
“The FBI and DEA have initiated their searches for responsive, non-exempt, reasonably segregable portions of records requested by the plaintiff and anticipate completing their searches in ninety days,” the report reads.
Judge Beryl Howell, who is presiding over the case, had earlier ordered the agencies to provide an update by May 2, 2025. That update has now taken the form of the latest joint status report.
Aaron Greenspan strongly disagrees with the proposed extension. He argued that the process has already been drawn out for several years and that key documents have likely already been located. Greenspan has asked the court to reject the delay and set a much shorter deadline for the agencies to comply.
The records being sought could shed light on long-standing rumors and questions surrounding Tinubu’s past in the United States. Though no charges have ever been filed against him, various reports have linked him to financial activities under investigation during the 1990s in Chicago.
