US Court Declines Request To Compel FBI, CIA To Release Tinubu’s Personal Records

President Bola Tinubu has secured a profound victory to preserve his personal records in the US as a court in the northern district of Columbia rejected a request to compel top law enforcement agencies to release his personal records.

The president has been under serious investigation and there have been applications across the country for release of all academic and personal records being held by schools and law enforcement agencies.

The president’s political opponents have continued to seek for dirt that could be presented in court to sack the former Lagos State governor since his announcement as the winner of the fiercely contested election.

Atiku Abubakar, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, had secured court nod weeks ago which he’s seeking the supreme court leave to present against the president that he did not graduate from US schools.

Records in public places have shown inconsistencies in the president’s academic records and multiple academic certificates he has presented since 1999 to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, have shown multiple inconsistencies opening chances for his opponents to question his integrity and legibility to stand for public office.

While the federal court in the US sanctioned the release of the president’s academic records, another application by Aaron Greenspan, an American, seeking to compel law enforcement agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Drug Enforcement Administration and Internal Revenue Service (IRS), to immediately release Tinubu’s records to be used in Nigeria’s supreme court has been rejected.

The applicant argued that the top law enforcement agencies violated the freedom of information act by their failure to release the records within the time provided by law.

According to the applicant , the documents related to “purported federal investigations into President Tinubu and one Mueez Adegboyega Akande, who is now deceased”.

But Beryl Howell, the judge, ruled that the applicant’s request fell short of the required preconditions to grant the request.

The judge said, “Plaintiff has failed even to attempt to argue how his request may overcome those exemptions and achieve a likelihood of success on the merits.

“This failure to address this important factor in his Emergency Motion weighs strongly in favour of denying his motion.

“Plaintiff falls far short of satisfying this standard. He has not supplied the court with any indication of a concrete, actual threat that he will suffer in the absence of an injunction.

“While his Emergency Motion states that a Nigerian Supreme Court hearing is scheduled to occur in the coming days, plaintiff cites no injury he will suffer that is in any way traceable to the relief requested in this motion.”

He added that the request “may be of a highly sensitive and private nature” and that “the subject of those documents, Bola A. Tinubu, has had no opportunity to protect his privacy interests in any such records”.

He stressed in his ruling that, “For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ORDERED that plaintiff’s Emergency Motion for a Hearing to Compel Immediate Document Production, ECF No. 17 is DENIED. SO ORDERED.”