The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has submitted records relating to President Bola Tinubu’s alleged 1993 drug-trafficking and money-laundering case to a federal judge in Washington, D.C.

The documents were reportedly hand-delivered to Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, August 28, and placed under seal for the judge’s exclusive review.

According to the filings, the FBI submitted the materials “under seal, ex parte, in camera” in compliance with a minute order issued by the court on August 20.

The submission followed a prolonged legal battle over a Freedom of Information Act request filed by transparency campaigner Aaron Greenspan in 2023 for records concerning Tinubu.

Greenspan had petitioned the FBI for the documents and later sued the agency after what was described as years of delay in responding to the request. Nigerian journalist David Hundeyin worked with Greenspan in pursuing the records request.

The court’s intervention intensified after the FBI missed several deadlines for producing the documents, prompting Howell to set August 28 as the final deadline for compliance.

Rather than release the records directly to Greenspan, however, the FBI delivered them privately to the judge, citing concerns surrounding Tinubu’s privacy rights.

The bureau had previously argued that releasing the records could violate the Nigerian president’s privacy, maintaining that the Freedom of Information Act primarily concerns access to government records and does not automatically override privacy protections relating to individuals.

Tinubu had also opposed the disclosure of the records, arguing that political opponents were seeking access to them for the purpose of damaging his reputation and undermining him politically.

The controversy centres on Tinubu’s reported encounter with U.S. authorities in the 1990s over allegations linked to narcotics trafficking and money laundering.

The president has consistently faced questions over the circumstances surrounding the case, particularly allegations that he forfeited hundreds of thousands of dollars to U.S. authorities.

Tinubu has largely refrained from publicly addressing the controversy in detail.

The latest development does not, however, amount to a public release of the FBI records. With the documents submitted under seal and reviewed in camera, any eventual disclosure to Greenspan or the public will depend on further proceedings and the judge’s determination on the competing claims of transparency and privacy.

The development comes after the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois released documents in 2023 detailing Tinubu’s interactions with American authorities in connection with the allegations.