By John Azu
An American lobbying firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, has indicated plans to challenge President Bola Tinubu’s claim to privacy in an alleged drug-trafficking records dispute before a United States federal court.
The firm’s senior partner, Dr Karl Von Batten, said in a motion seeking permission to file an amicus curiae brief before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that he intends to argue for the disclosure of records relating to the alleged drug-trafficking inquiry involving Tinubu.
According to the motion, filed under Local Rule 7(o)(2), Von Batten seeks to participate in the matter in support of making the records public.
The development followed a statement by the Presidency on Thursday, signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, which maintained that Tinubu has no criminal case pending against him in the United States.
Onanuga said the matter concerns civil disclosure proceedings under the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), adding that the records in question are protected from public disclosure because they form part of grand jury proceedings.
He also said the matter would be determined exclusively by Judge Beryl A. Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia based on the evidence, applicable law and arguments presented by the parties—not on the wishes of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar or Von Batten, whom he described as non-parties to the case.
However, in his latest motion, which lists Aaron Greenspan, the plaintiff in the original case, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and others as defendants, with Tinubu named as an intervenor, Von Batten argued that the Presidency’s statement, which expressly mentioned him, makes him an interested party in the matter and weakens the privacy claim being asserted.
“Our argument is straightforward: the Nigerian Statehouse Statement blunder does not automatically eliminate President Tinubu’s privacy protections, but when his own Presidency voluntarily places the records, litigation, and privacy claim into the international public debate through an official government statement, we believe it destroys the weight of his asserted privacy interest under Exemption 7(C),” he stated.
Von Batten further argued that Tinubu could not rely on privacy protections before the court while the Presidency publicly discussed the records and litigation.
“Nigerian President Tinubu cannot ask a federal court to protect his alleged #heroin trafficking records on privacy grounds while simultaneously using the power of the Nigerian Presidency to ‘publicly’ discuss those same records and state ‘obvious untruths’ about what the official @FBI, @DEAHQ, and court records actually say,” he said.
“You cannot claim privacy before the Court and then blatantly misrepresent the records to the public. That might work in Nigeria; it does not work in the United States.”
Von Batten had previously alleged that he forwarded evidence to the U.S. Department of Justice concerning an unsolicited offer of $3 million, as well as an invitation to a confidential meeting in London, from a highly placed individual whom he said he was informed was connected to President Tinubu.
The latest court filing is part of an ongoing dispute over whether records sought under the U.S. FOIA should remain protected from public disclosure.