As Tinubu’s Dark Past Imperils Nigeria’s Future

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

It is indubitable, all pretensions to the contrary notwithstanding, that this is not the best of times for President Bola Tinubu. Granted, he is a hard guy – tough, unyielding and some will say lacking in empathy – but even the hardest of men have their vulnerable moments.

*Tinubu

This must be such a moment for Tinubu because nothing can be more unsettling for a leader than when the past, thought to have been successfully buried returns like a phoenix, an apparition of sorts, with old memories and unresolved events, haunting like a sudden ghost. But make no mistake about it. Nigerians are not spared because it is a nightmare for a people to have a leader who is haunted by his dark past.

Right now President Tinubu is engaged in a mortal combat with his own past. He is doing everything humanly possible to ensure that whatever he did in Chicago, the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois more than three decades ago remains buried in the ash heap of history – completely forgotten.

That may well have been the case if he had remained a private citizen. But he isn’t. Tinubu is the President of Nigeria, a country with no less than 230 million people. And it is only normal that the citizens know everything about him including his past. And that past includes what is already in the public domain.

In the early 1990s, U.S. authorities carried out investigations into alleged drug trafficking involving Tinubu. In 1993, $460,000 was seized from an account linked to him, a forfeiture tied to a Chicago heroin ring. Tinubu himself acknowledges this but his supporters claim that the forfeiture was civil in nature. He was neither charged with a criminal offense nor formally indicted, they chorus as if that deodorises the stench which the act emits.

His opponents demur, insisting that he was criminally charged. In 2022, an American researcher, Aaron Greenspan, who runs the transparency platform PlainSite, filed 12 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with six U.S. federal agencies seeking information relating to the Chicago heroin ring. He sought investigative records about four named individuals allegedly associated with the drug ring, including Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande and Abiodun Agbele.

Five of the U.S. agencies responded, saying that they could neither confirm nor deny the existence of the requested records. Dissatisfied, Greenspan approached the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) for help, but to no avail.

On June 12, 2023, Greenspan filed a lawsuit at a U.S. Court for the District of Columbia presided over by Judge Beryl Howell challenging the agencies’ Glomar response to his FOIA requests. A Glomar response is an official statement by a U.S. government agency refusing to confirm or deny whether requested records exist. Though the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA), and Department of State were initially named as defendants, the CIA was also later named as a defendant.

In April 2025, Judge Howell, convinced that the Glomar responses issued by the FBI and DEA were “improper and must be lifted” ruled that the two agencies failed to provide information to “establish that cognisable privacy interest exists in keeping secret the fact that Tinubu was a subject of criminal investigation.” She further held that the two agencies failed to provide evidence demonstrating the burden of sustaining their Glomar responses.

But for Tinubu, the information that Greenspan was seeking to make public is a matter of life and death. It is too sordid to be made a menu on the breakfast table of fellow citizens. He promptly asked the U.S. court to block the release of the records held by the Department of Justice (DOJ), FBI and DEA.

In the 16-page court filing, his lawyers, Christopher W. Carmichael, Victor P. Henderson and Oluwole O. Afolabi, argued that releasing the records could infringe on Tinubu’s privacy rights. “Regardless of the prior disclosure in the forfeiture proceeding, Intervenor retains a privacy interest in potential disclosure of the investigative files sought by Plaintiff,” the lawyers argued in court.

But the judge, unimpressed, ordered that the files be released and gave a deadline. Both the U.S. DOJ and Tinubu’s legal team requested a 10-day extension to respond. Judge Howell granted only four days, until August 21. On August 20, the FBI filed a motion seeking to submit an ex parte in camera declaration – a written statement submitted solely to a judge by a party in a legal case – on why it withheld information on its investigative records relating to Tinubu’s alleged drug trafficking scandal, an application which was subsequently published in the social media by Von Batten-Montague-York, a Washington-based lobbying firm recently hired by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

The FBI claimed that Greenspan’s request seeking “the entire FBI file for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, DOB 3/29/1952, President-Elect of Nigeria as of February 2023” and “FBI 302 interviews with Bola Tinubu from FBI Case No. 245-IP-71386-UUUUUU during the timeframe 1992-1993” if acceded to “would, among other things, disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations and/or could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual.”

Judge Howell granted the FBI request and the agency has handed in a 399-page unredacted file for her eyes only. It is left for her to make an informed decision after perusing the documents but it is very unlikely that she will overrule the FBI because the U.S. national interest is now at play. So, Nigerians may never get to know the past that Tinubu is too ashamed of. However, the truth has emerged.

 Tinubu, contrary to what he claims, was criminally investigated and possibly indicted on the matter. And while Nigerians may never have access to the 399-page file, the American establishment does and they know that something in there frightens the hell out of the president of Africa’s most populous country, and he would do anything to keep it out of public space. They are demons from his past.

Obviously, President Tinubu is haunted by the demons from his past. Some Nigerians have rallied to his support with the argument that everyone has a past. To such people, what is important now is his ability to deliver on his extant job. But that is where the problem lies. What is contained in those files will play a significant role in determining how well Tinubu governs Nigeria. 

How do I mean? FBI, the U.S. principal domestic law enforcement and internal security agency, which is fighting hard to ensure that the contents of those files are not made public doesn’t care a hoot about Tinubu. Neither does the CIA. What is important is the U.S. national interest. And what could that be? Tinubu, the president of a country awash with critical mineral resources that the U.S. is not only in dire need of but has actually gone to war in quest of, is asking for their favour, which they are in a position to grant in exchange for something.

So, what is the possible quid pro quo? What is Tinubu prepared to give the Americans to ensure that the contents of the 399-page document remain secret? Nigeria’s sovereignty, no doubt! By agreeing to stymie the exposure of Tinubu’s dark past, the U.S. has put him on a leash. Tinubu has become vulnerable and prone to vile manipulations by a super power with an unscrupulous president. That is the easiest route for a president to become a CIA asset, a useful idiot.

Contrary to what some Nigerians had hoped for, President Donald Trump, America’s most transactional president ever, may even help Tinubu to secure a second term. With compromised national sovereignty, Nigerians will not stand a chance because the worst thing that can happen to a people is to be in the debilitating bind that Nigeria finds itself today where a president’s dark past is imperilling the country’s future.

*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche (ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com)