There are moments in journalism when one person decides that a story is too important to abandon, regardless of the pressure, ridicule or personal consequences. For the continuing battle over the American law-enforcement records concerning Bola Ahmed Tinubu, two names deserve to be remembered: Nigerian investigative journalist David Hundeyin and American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan. I salute them both. And I owe Hundeyin a particular acknowledgement, because without his determination to drag this history back into the Nigerian public consciousness, many of us might never have understood the scale of the questions surrounding Tinubu’s years in Chicago.
Hundeyin did not suddenly discover the existence of the old American court proceedings in 2023. His major West Africa Weekly investigation appeared in July 2022, months before Nigeria’s presidential election. He subsequently produced further reporting and a documentary examining Tinubu’s Chicago history.
The underlying American records were real. In 1993, a federal civil-forfeiture proceeding in Chicago ended with approximately $460,000 being forfeited to the United States government from accounts connected to Tinubu . The government’s case arose from an investigation involving a heroin-trafficking and money-laundering operation . That fact should be distinguished from saying that Tinubu was criminally convicted of drug trafficking. He was not convicted in that proceeding; it was a civil forfeiture case . But Hundeyin understood the bigger journalistic question: What else did the American government know?
That question eventually became much bigger than an investigation published by a Nigerian journalist.
Enter Aaron Greenspan
Between 2022 and 2023, Greenspan submitted numerous Freedom of Information Act requests seeking records from American government agencies, including the FBI and DEA . Among them was an extraordinarily specific request: the entire FBI file on Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Another sought FBI Form 302 interview records concerning Tinubu from 1992–1993 .
The agencies resisted. So Greenspan did something that separates curiosity from determination: he went to federal court. On June 12, 2023, he filed Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys et al., Civil Action No. 23-1816, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia . And the fight has continued for more than three years.
Tinubu himself moved to intervene in the case in October 2023, citing privacy interests in confidential tax and federal law-enforcement records .
The Breakthrough
Then came the breakthrough. In April 2025, Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA could not continue using their blanket “Glomar” responses — refusing even to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records — in the manner they had attempted . The court found their position insufficient and ordered the process of searching for and producing non-exempt responsive material to continue .
And now, in August 2026, we are witnessing another remarkable stage of the battle. The FBI has told the court that some withheld information implicates FOIA exemptions involving confidential sources, investigative techniques and even information whose disclosure could reasonably be expected to endanger someone’s life or physical safety .
The 399-Page Search Result
According to Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C., the FBI’s search for records responsive to requests concerning Tinubu produced 399 pages of documents. The records are said to include material connected to the 1993 drug-trafficking investigation, including references to heroin-residue laboratory testing, controlled drug purchases involving a cooperating witness, confidential informants, federal grand-jury activity, prosecutorial reports, surveillance and undercover operations, financial seizures, bank-account seizure warrants, IRS criminal-investigation material and international investigative coordination.
However, the 399-page figure and the specific contents listed should be attributed to the account rather than presented as findings independently established by the public court filing. The August 28 notice itself confirms the submission of sealed declarations but does not publicly disclose their contents.
The FBI submitted the records “under seal, ex parte, in camera” on August 28, 2026, in compliance with Judge Howell’s August 20 order . That does not prove what is inside the withheld pages. But it demonstrates exactly why Greenspan’s persistence matters. The contents must be judged from the documents themselves, not from speculation on either side.
And behind this extraordinary American court battle stands the Nigerian journalist who helped make the underlying story impossible to ignore.
The Price Hundeyin Says He Paid
Hundeyin’s journalism has not come without consequences. He left Nigeria and was granted refugee status in Ghana in 2022. In 2023 he publicly alleged that Nigerian authorities were attempting to pressure Ghana over his status and even sought to have him returned to Nigeria. Those allegations must be reported carefully. Ghana’s Refugee Board subsequently said it had no intention of repatriating him and stated that his fear of refoulement lacked supporting verification.
But another fact is beyond dispute: Hundeyin’s Ghanaian refugee status itself entered the Tinubu FOIA litigation. When Greenspan opposed Tinubu’s October 2023 attempt to intervene, one of the exhibits filed in the United States federal court was the Ghana Refugee Board’s determination granting David Hundeyin refugee status.
Think about that extraordinary journey. A Nigerian journalist investigates the history of the man who would become President. An American transparency activist begins demanding the underlying government records. American agencies refuse. The activist takes them to federal court. The Nigerian President intervenes to protect privacy interests. A federal judge rejects important parts of the government’s secrecy argument. And years later the FBI and DEA are still before that court fighting over precisely what can and cannot be disclosed.
That is persistence. That is why David Hundeyin deserves his flowers now, not twenty years from now. And Aaron Greenspan deserves them too. Journalism is not merely writing stories. Sometimes journalism means refusing to allow powerful institutions to determine what the public is permitted to ask.
I have spent enormous time following this story myself, but credit must go where credit belongs. Hundeyin was pursuing these questions before many Nigerians understood their significance, while Greenspan transformed the search for answers into a sustained American federal-court battle.
I sincerely hope they both get to see this process through to its conclusion. Not because anyone should prejudge what the remaining documents contain. Quite the opposite. Release every record that American law permits to be released. Let Nigerians read the documents. Let journalists examine them. Let historians preserve them. Let Tinubu answer whatever they actually establish.
If the records exonerate him, Nigerians should know. If they reveal something more serious, Nigerians should know that too. After all these years, speculation is no substitute for evidence.
David Hundeyin started pulling at a thread. Aaron Greenspan took that thread into a federal courtroom. And now an American judge is forcing some of the most powerful law-enforcement agencies in the world to explain why portions of this history should remain hidden.
Whatever the final files reveal, that achievement cannot be taken away from them.
I salute David Hundeyin. I salute Aaron Greenspan.
Keep digging. Nigeria deserves the truth.
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The key court history—including the June 2023 filing, Tinubu’s October 2023 intervention, and Judge Howell’s ruling—is independently reflected in the federal case record. The FBI’s latest position about investigative techniques and potential danger to individuals was reported in August 2026 .
