The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has declined an emergency application seeking to compel top US law enforcement agencies to hasten the release of confidential information on President Bola Tinubu.
The judge, Beryl Howell, refused the application on Monday.
An American, Aaron Greenspan, had filed a suit in June under the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA against the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI), Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA.
In his complaint, Mr Greenspan accused the law enforcement agencies of violating the FIOA by failing to release “documents relating to purported federal investigations into” President Tinubu and one Mueez Adegboyega Akande, who is now deceased, within the statutory time frame.
Mr Greenspan stated that the records sought were from the Northern Districts of Illinois and/or Indiana “involving charging decisions” against Messrs Tinubu and Akande.
Mr Tinubu was said to have forfeited $460,000 to the American government in 1993 after authorities linked the funds to narcotics trafficking proceeds.
The issue of Mr Tinubu’s forfeiture of the funds was prominently discussed at the Presidential Election Petition Court, where Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi contested the president’s eligibility to run for president of Nigeria.
But the election court in a unanimous decision, on 6 September, dismissed the suits, affirming Mr Tinubu’s election.
Ahead of the Supreme Court’s hearing of Atiku Abubakar’s case against President Tinubu’s election on Monday in Abuja, Mr Greenspan had last Friday earnestly sought the US court’s intervention to order the FBI, the CIA and others to fast-track the process of releasing the documents on the Nigerian leader.
A seven-member panel of the Nigerian Supreme Court on Monday heard Atiku and Peter Obi’s appeals seeking to overturn Mr Tinubu’s victory in the 25 February presidential election.
Credible news reported that Atiku through his lawyer, Chris Uche, sought to tender fresh evidence before the apex court against the president.
Reason the files on Tinubu was denied?
According to court documents, the EOUSA denied Mr. Greenspan’s FOIA request by “invoking FOIA Exemptions 6 and 7(c), which protect information that would constitute unwarranted invasions of personal privacy and information compiled for law enforcement purposes that may constitute an unwarranted invasion of the personal privacy of a third party.”
Declining the request, the judge, Beryl Howell, said Mr Greenspan did not meet the preconditions for granting his request.
“Plaintiff has failed even to attempt to argue how his request may overcome those exemptions and achieve a likelihood of success on the merits.
This failure to address this important factor in his Emergency Motion weighs strongly in favour of denying his motion,” Ms Howell said.
Citing a plethora of cases to buttress the preconditions, the judge noted that Mr Greenspan must prove “that irreparable injury is likely in the absence of an injunction,” “rather than a mere possibility.”
“Plaintiff falls far short of this standard.” He has not provided any evidence to the court of a concrete, actual threat that he will face in the absence of an injunction. While plaintiff’s Emergency Motion states that a Nigerian Supreme Court hearing is scheduled in the coming days, he cites no injury he will suffer as a result of the relief requested in this motion.”
The judge went on to say that Mr Greenspan’s request “…could be of a highly sensitive and private nature,” and that “the subject of those documents, Bola A. Tinubu, has had no opportunity to protect his privacy interests in any such records.”
