The US District Court for the District of Columbia’s Judge Beryl Howell issued an order which required top law enforcement agencies to disclose President Bola Tinubu’s documented records publicly.
The statement from Judge Beryl Howell indicates that information secrecy lacks both reason and credibility.
Judicial authority issued this order because Aaron Greenspan had requested FOIA documents which the law enforcement agencies failed to produce.
The agencies did not satisfy the required disclosure period with records about federal probes involving President Tinubu together with Abiodun Agbele.
His investigation possibly stems from the $460,000 dollars President Tinubu surrendered to US authorities in 1993 which were connected to drug trafficking.
The Glomer responses from both Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) proved improper so Howell issued an order to require their removal.
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He explained that the Glomar responses no longer make sense to protect the information from public disclosure.
The FOIA requester possesses two approaches to challenge agency Glomar responses by first attacking the exemption-based reasoning for withholding the record existence confirmation.
He explained the requirement for proving two elements: first, proof that the agency “has ‘officially acknowledged otherwise exempt information through prior disclosure” and second, proof that the agency “has ‘waived its right to claim an exemption with respect to that information.”
In this case, the judge said Greenspan asserts both types of challenges to defendants’ Glomar responses: “The plaintiffs’ argument that (1) DEA has officially confirmed investigations of Agbele’s involvement in the drug trafficking ring, (2) the FBI and DEA have both officially confirmed investigations of Tinubu relating to the drug trafficking ring, (3) any privacy interests implicated by the FOIA requests to the FBI and DEA for records about Tinubu are overcome by the public interest in release of such information, and (4) the CIA has officially acknowledged records responsive to plaintiff’s FOIA request about Tinubu.”
The $460,000 money payment Tinubu made became a key subject of conversation throughout the 2023 Nigerian presidential campaign he successfully won despite facing Obi and Abubakar at the polls.
Tinubu obtained his Presidential victory after Obi and Atiku filed a lawsuit at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which the court ultimately dismissed.
