- By Safiu Kehinde
In the wake of the ruling by a United States Court ordering the release of President Bola Tinubu’s drug trial report, the Presidency has said there is nothing new again in the report.
Reacting to the report in a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the Presidency held that there are no new claims to be revealed as the said report had been in the public space for over 30 years.
Onanuga maintained that Tinubu was not indicted in the said case.
“Journalists have sought the Presidency’s reaction to the ruling last Tuesday by a Washington DC judge ordering the US FBI and DEA to release reports connected with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Our response is as follows.
“There is nothing new to be revealed. The report by Agent Moss of the FBI and the DEA report have been in the public space for more than 30 years. The reports did not indict the Nigerian leader.
The lawyers are examining the ruling.” Onanuga wrote.
Premium Times reported that the US District Court for the District of Columbia had ordered top US law enforcement agencies to release confidential information generated on President Bola Tinubu during a “purported federal investigation in the 1990s.”
The judge, Beryl Howell, had in the order on Tuesday, held that protecting the information from public disclosure is “neither logical nor plausible.”
According to the report, the suit for the disclosure of the information was filed in June 2023 by an American, Aaron Greenspan.
He had accused the law enforcement agencies of violating the Freedom of Information Act by failing to release within the statutory time “documents relating to purported federal investigations into” President Tinubu and one Abiodun Agbele.
Tinubu was alleged to have forfeited $460,000 to the American government in 1993 after authorities linked the funds to proceeds of narcotics trafficking.
During the Presidential Election Petition Tinubu’s opponents, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, had challenged the president’s eligibility to contest Nigeria’s presidency making references to the alleged money laundering allegations.
The election tribunal, however, in a unanimous decision, dismissed the suits, affirming Tinubu’s eligibility and eventual election.