By Ehichioya Ezomon
On August 28, 2026 – days before the August 31, 2026, maiden G-100 Summit of Opposition Political Parties (SOPP) in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja – the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) filed a sworn declaration in an American court, confirming that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the subject of a criminal investigation in the early 1990s.
A Facebook reporting breaks down, into distinct categories, the legal nature of the actions surrounding Tinubu, viz:
• The Investigation (Criminal): In sworn U.S. court filings (such as those submitted in the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit before Judge Beryl Howell), the FBI explicitly confirmed that the records in question were compiled in furtherance of an investigation into individuals for criminal drug-trafficking offenses, naming Tinubu as a subject.
• The Charges and Conviction (None): The FBI and U.S. authorities never filed criminal charges against Tinubu, nor was he ever indicted, prosecuted, or convicted of a criminal offence in the United States.
• The 1993 Forfeiture (Civil): The tangible outcome in 1993 involved a civil asset forfeiture proceeding in a U.S. District Court in Illinois, where approximately $460,000 from bank accounts associated with Tinubu was forfeited to the U.S. government.
As per Premium Times Nigeria, “A civil forfeiture targets property/funds suspected of connection to illicit activity rather than trying an individual for a criminal crime, and the settlement (in Tinubu’s case) did not constitute a criminal conviction or an admission of criminal guilt.”
Following the G-100 summit, some reports indicated that the allegations against the president, and the ongoing FOIA requests at the US court for release of the records by government agencies, featured in the deliberations and the communiqué.
One particular report stated: “Specifically, prominent participants like the National Chairman of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, openly addressed the situation during the sessions, criticising the president’s absence from the country, and referencing allegations tied to his past US records.
“Following these extensive deliberations, the coalition formalised their joint stance. The subsequent communiqué released by the participating opposition parties included a resolution explicitly calling for the disclosure of Tinubu’s US records, echoing the high-profile FOIA litigation led by American activist Aaron Greenspan.”
“It (communiqué) further called on the Government of the United States of America to ensure the timely and lawful disclosure of all non-exempt official records concerning President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that bear on legitimate public interest.”
As of this copy, no indication that the FOIA requests in the US court featured officially at the G-100 summit, nor formed part of the communiqué, except it’s smuggled into it, as “participants didn’t explicitly raise the issue during the core panel sessions, but the event was heavily overshadowed on the sidelines by concurrent external developments regarding the FOIA requests.”
A Facebook report notes: “Because prominent opposition leaders attending or tied to the G-100 summit (such as Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi) are actively positioning themselves to challenge Tinubu, the timing of the FOIA case became a major talking point among political analysts, local media, and summit delegates on the sidelines of the event.”
“The overlap in public discussion stems from the fact that the G-100 summit happened in parallel with ongoing, heavy domestic political debates regarding the US federal court cases involving FOIA requests. Activists in the US have used FOIA lawsuits targeting bodies like the FBI and DEA, to seek records regarding historical investigations tied to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.”
And The Guardian Nigeria News report says: “While individual opposition leaders present at the G-100 talks have previously commented on these legal developments, the coalition explicitly kept the official summit agenda and final communiqué focused strictly on institutional framework negotiations, excluding external legal proceedings or foreign document requests.”
Why reporting the issue of the FOIA requests in the US – discussed on the sidelines of the summit – as “extensively deliberated,” and “explicitly” included in the communiqué, which, at best, was symbolically signed for the cameras, and not released due to the absence of major opposition candidates and their running mates?
The absentee candidates – who virtually own their platforms as flagbearers – include former Vice President Abubakar of the main oppostion African Democratic Congress (ADC); ex-Anambra State Governor Obi of Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC); and Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate, Prince Adewale Adebayo, and PRP’s candidate and former Cross River Governor Donald Duke, were in attendance from among the five (or six) parties listed as represented at the summit: ADC, NDC, APM, SPD, PRP and a disclaimed faction of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The BIG QUESTION: Has the fledgling G-100 political group yielded its platform to the 2027 political interest of a particular candidate to be “imposed” on the opposition as its “single presidential candidate” to challenge Tinubu at the poll?
A similar antic allegedly informed former Anambra Governor Obi and his running mate, former Kano Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, to pull out of the ADC, originally the platform for the Atiku-headed Coalition of Opposition Politicians (COP) to field a single presidential candidate for 2027!
Meanwhile, why is Atiku looking for “oppo materials” around the world four and half months to the 2027 poll? He’s simply realised he’s incapable of defeating Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) without opposition coalition backing, Tinubu resigning or disqualified from the poll!
That’s why Atiku throws anything in to disqualify the president or render him unelectable, claiming lately that Tinubu’s sick, and declaring him 90 years old (a nonegenarian) – age that Atiku, who’d be over 80 (octogenarian) on Election Day, pledges to present in court.
Atiku made the controversial remark during an interview with BBC, while defending his decision to run for President in 2027, despite concerns about his age, and suggestions he withdraws for a younger opposition candidate against Tinubu.
On Tinubu’s age and health, Atiku claimed: “We have a president who is 90 years old now and who is sick. I am healthy; I am strong. So why would I not make my services available to my fellow countrymen?” Reminded that Tinubu isn’t 90, Atiku replied: “Well, I have evidence, I have evidence that he is. And I will present it in court.” (Premium Times Nigeria)
Arguing that his health, strength, and fitness make him capable of serving, Atiku defended his multiple attempts at the presidency (seven primaries since 1993, and three actual contests in 2007, 2019 and 2023), his long political history, opposition to military rule, and disqualifications. (THISDAYLIVE.Facebook.YouTube·SaharaTV).
To achieve his presidential ambition, Atiku’s engaged in a vicious campaign against Tinubu, including instituting court cases in Nigeria and in the United States, arguing that the president had been indicted and convicted for drug trafficking and money laundering, and reportedly paid a fine of $460,000 in the US in 1993 – allegations Tinubu’s consistently denied.
Atiku’s reported US ally, Greenspan, has filed fresh FOIA requests in court, flowing from his 2022 and 2023 pursuits, seeking records from the CIA, FBI, DEA, Internal Revenue Service, Executive Office for United States Attorneys and Department of State, concerning Tinubu’s alleged involvement in a Chicago heroin operation in the early 1990s.
Greenspan, founder of PlainSite, filed 12 FOIA requests before the United States district court for the district of Columbia, seeking the records, including the “entire FBI file” on Tinubu and FBI interview records from 1992 to 1993. Claiming there was a public interest in obtaining the records because Tinubu is Nigeria’s president, he asked the court for a summary judgment on the matter.
TheCable reported on August 29, 2026, that an April 2025 ruling by US district judge, Beryl Howell, held that the FBI and DEA’s earlier refusal to confirm or deny (under a Glomar response) whether they had records relating to Tinubu, “was improper,” and ordered the agencies to search for and process non-exempt records responsive to the requests.
The FBI and DEA subsequently produced thousands of documents, some containing redactions, alongside a Vaughn index (a detailed list prepared by an agency during FOIA lawsuits to explain why it withholds or redacts specific records), explaining the basis for certain withholdings.
Greenspan, who asked the court to order further disclosure, argued that the records released didn’t adequately respond to his requests, citing that Howell’s 2025 ruling lifting the FBI and DEA’s “Glomar” responses meant that Tinubu had no remaining privacy interest in the contents of the investigative files.
Tinubu, who’s denied wrongdoing linked to the allegations, has joined the case as an Intervenor (a third party joining a legal case or official proceeding on court’s permission), and asked the court to reject the motion seeking release of the records, arguing that the documents are protected by privacy provisions under US law.
In his response in a filing on August 28, 2026, via his lawyers, Tinubu rejected Greenspan’s submissions, arguing that some information about his past entering the public domain did not eliminate his privacy interests in undisclosed details contained in government files.
Tinubu’s legal team argued that FOIA is intended to provide information about government activities, rather than expose information about private individuals contained in government files, adding that judge Howell had specifically recognised the possibility of protecting the contents of investigative files through individual withholdings and redactions.
“Plaintiff’s motion should be denied because FOIA is not a tool for obtaining information the government collected about private individuals,” the lawyers stated. They argued that the requests primarily seek information about Tinubu rather than information that would reveal how the US government or its agencies conducted their duties, citing a 1989 US Supreme Court decision, which held that disclosure of records concerning private citizens generally reveals little about government operations.
The lawyers also challenged Greenspan’s claim that there was a public interest in obtaining the records because Tinubu is Nigeria’s president. They argued that an individual’s public interest in Tinubu’s background, political career or fitness for office is not the kind of public interest recognised under FOIA.
“Plaintiff’s interest in an individual or that individual’s activities is not a ‘public interest’ that FOIA recognises,” the lawyers stated, noting that Greenspan’s filings showed that his focus “is on obtaining information about Tinubu rather than examining the conduct of the FBI, DEA or other government agencies.”
The lawyers rejected suggestions of a secret prosecution or cover-up, describing such claims as “unsubstantiated allegations” that cannot justify disclosure of law-enforcement records concerning an individual, arguing that Greenspan had not produced evidence sufficient to establish that government impropriety had occurred.
The Tinubu lawyers then submitted that, “If this Court finds that Plaintiff cannot use FOIA to mine information in government files about a private individual, he should not be able to access documents with Intervenor’s ‘name on them,'” and asked the court to deny Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and allow the FBI and DEA’s existing redactions and withholdings to remain in place.
Despite these multipronged attacks, Atiku and the ADC appear to’ve come to terms that beating the president at the poll might be unachievable. On a live interview on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ on August 28, 2026, a usually ebullient ADC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, lost his confidence about beating Tinubu.
Responding to a pointed question of whether Atiku could defeat Tinubu single-handedly without help from a coalition of parties, Abdullahi failed to give a straight “yes” answer, saying instead, “I believe so, and that’s our thinking, and that’s what we are working on.”
Abdullahi had expressed confidence that Atiku could defeat Tinubu without relying on a coalition, saying: “We are going to win. We don’t need a coalition to win this election. The African Democratic Congress does not need a coalition to win this election,” PUNCH reported on August 28, 2026.
Stating that a coalition could make the party’s task easier, but not necessarily for victory, the ADC mouthpiece added: “If we are able to build the kind of coalition that we started to build, maybe to make our job easier, but we don’t need that coalition. We don’t necessarily need the coalition to win the election.”
But with Atiku winning the election suddenly becoming “conditional,” Abdullahi said ADC’s expected to draw support from voters across the country, “from Abia to Zamfara,” as “some Nigerians change their voting preferences based on their experience under the Tinubu administration.”
“The experience of Nigerians in the last three years has pushed people to the extent that they are saying that ‘anybody but President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,'” he said.
Abdullahi confirmed, though, that, “We are still having conversations among ourselves, opposition political parties, and there are different areas. The conversation is not about how do we produce a single presidential candidate” – further pouring water on the much-talked-about opposition fielding a single candidate to challenge President Tinubu’s re-election.
“The conversations predominantly are about how… what areas of cooperation is possible. For example, if we are able to develop a common protocol for election monitoring and for policing our votes, that is major,” Abdullahi added.
If the ADC doesn’t need a coalition of opposition parties to win the presidency in 2027, why is Atiku, and his allies and proxies having recourse to multiple lawsuits in Nigeria and overseas, and a pressure campaign for Tinubu to resign or quit the race? Fear of meeting the president and APC at the poll on January 16, 2027? That’d be defeat before the ballots are in!
• _Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
