Tinubu Accused of Delay Tactics to Halt Records Release Before Nigeria’s Supreme Court Judgment in Election Dispute
Aaron Greenspan, the owner of PlainSite, a platform advocating data transparency to combat public service corruption, has characterized President Bola Tinubu as an “alleged criminal” employing delay tactics to impede the release of his records by U.S. security agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Mr. Greenspan informed the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Columbia in Washington D.C. that “Bola Ahmed Tinubu is an alleged criminal trying to buy time in a desperate attempt to cling to power in Nigeria, which the FOIA materials in this action directly threaten.”
Mr. Greenspan explained that Tinubu’s recent effort to intervene in a five-month-old lawsuit is merely an attempt to delay his rivals from using the records against him at Nigeria’s Supreme Court, where his election victory is being hotly contested.
The PlainSite owner collaborated with journalist David Hundeyin to file a freedom of information request for Tinubu’s records in 2022, which the FBI is set to release in October.
This response comes after Tinubu filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit, claiming he would be “adversely affected” if his intervention request is denied.
However, Mr. Greenspan sees through Tinubu’s attempts to delay the release of his records, recognizing the potential damage these documents could cause to his case at the apex court in Nigeria.
“To call Tinubu’s motion a last-ditch attempt at buying time is an understatement. This action has been pending in open court for approximately five months. Its filing was covered in Nigerian media,” asserted Mr. Greenspan in his opposition to the Nigerian leader’s request.
“The timing of Tinubu’s submission is suspicious given the Nigerian Supreme Court’s simultaneous proceedings and should be treated as meritless accordingly,” he added.
Tinubu is still reeling from the legal setback he suffered in the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, where judges ordered Chicago State University to provide his main opponent, Atiku Abubakar, access to all educational records and depose the university registrar. Mr. Westberg, the registrar, stated in his deposition that he could not authenticate the certificate Tinubu submitted to Nigeria’s electoral commission, INEC, as the school did not issue the document.
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Tinubu is making desperate efforts to prevent the Supreme Court from admitting the deposition as evidence and may face the backlash of his records—whether criminal or otherwise—being in the public domain.
