Court Turns Down Request To Order FBI, CIA, and IRS To Release Files On Tinubu in Nigeria

A United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington D.C. has denied an emergency request for the release of confidential records about President Bola Tinubu. The records were compiled by American law enforcement authorities. Aaron Greenspan, an American transparency activist, had filed a motion to order the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other U.S. bodies to immediately turn over records they had scheduled for release before the end of October. Greenspan filed the emergency request after Tinubu deployed lawyers to fight against the release, saying it would violate his privacy, among other statutory rights.
Greenspan argued that Tinubu was trying to stall the release of the documents to prevent them from having an impact on the ongoing election dispute at the Nigerian Supreme Court. However, in a ruling on Monday, Judge Beryl Howell denied the request for an urgent hearing to compel the immediate release of the documents. She said that no hearing to determine the merits of the motion is necessary.
Judge Howell also approved President Tinubu’s request to allow his lawyer, Christopher Carmichael, to appear in the case. However, she has yet to rule on the President’s motion to intervene in the matter. Earlier, the U.S. Department of Justice, represented by Matthew Graves, had said the government would not be taking any position as to whether Tinubu should join the case or not.
In her decision, Judge Howell said that Greenspan did not adequately justify his request for an urgent hearing on his motion for expedited release of records, especially against the need to protect Tinubu’s interest. She ruled that “Plaintiff’s emergency motion for a hearing to compel immediate document production is denied. No hearing to determine the merits of this motion is necessary.”
The judge also stated that the plaintiff did not prove that the balance of equities tips in his favor or that the granting of his motion would further the public interest. She added that given that the FOIA request is for records that, if any exist, 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, the balance of equities militates strongly in favor of denying this emergency motion.