Drug allegations: Tinubu backs US request for 10-day delay in records release

President Bola Tinubu has joined a request by the United States Department of Justice for a 10-day extension to respond to a motion seeking the release of records relating to allegations of drug trafficking.

 

Tinubu’s legal team filed a notice of joinder before the US District Court for the District of Columbia, asking to be placed on the same schedule as the defendants in the case.

 

The filing was published online by Von Batten-Montague-York, a US-based policy advisory and lobbying firm retained by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

 

In the notice, Tinubu’s lawyers said they were joining the defendants’ request for additional time to respond to a motion for summary judgment.

 

“Intervenor joins Defendants’ motion for a 10-day extension of time to file response to the motion for summary judgment (DE 92), inasmuch as Intervenor requests that the responses remain on the same schedule,” the filing stated.

 

The notice was signed by Christopher W. Carmichael and Victor P. Henderson of Henderson Parks, LLC.

 

According to the filing, the plaintiff opposed the request, while the defendant did not.

 

However, US District Judge Beryl Howell subsequently denied the request for an extension, according to the lobbying firm.

 

The firm, in a post on X, accused Tinubu of seeking to use the additional time to exert political influence in Washington.

 

It alleged that the President could use the period to lobby US officials against releasing the records on the grounds that their disclosure could affect US-Nigeria relations and security cooperation.

 

The allegations by the lobbying firm have not been independently established.

 

The case, Aaron Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, et al., Civil Action No. 23-1816 (BAH), has been pending for more than three years.

 

The records sought in the case relate to US investigations and allegations concerning Tinubu and suspected drug-trafficking activities.

 

Previous reports have linked a $460,000 asset forfeiture involving Tinubu to a US federal investigation into a Chicago-based heroin-trafficking network in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

 

In 1993, a US District Court ordered the forfeiture of $460,000 held in an account in Tinubu’s name to the US government. The order stated that the funds represented proceeds of narcotics trafficking or were involved in transactions violating money-laundering laws.

 

Tinubu has consistently denied involvement in drug trafficking and rejected the allegations against him.

 

His lawyers have maintained that the forfeiture proceeding was a civil action against the money rather than a criminal case against Tinubu.

 

They have also argued that he was never arrested, indicted, arraigned or convicted of a drug-related offence in the United States.