Reno Omokri is peddling a twenty-three-year-old letter as though Nigerians cannot read it or understand the difference between an arrest-record check and the disclosure of investigative files.
We can. And this attempt to substitute political marketing for an honest explanation is insulting.
The letter dated 4 February 2003 reports that a check found no criminal arrest records, wanted notices or warrants for Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Read that carefully. It does not say that every FBI or DEA investigative file concerning Tinubu was examined. It does not describe the evidence in those files. It does not contain a judicial finding that every allegation was investigated and disproved. It is a record-check letter. It is not a judgment of acquittal.
Nobody needs Reno to keep announcing that Tinubu was not convicted in the American matter. The absence of a criminal conviction is not the disputed point. Nor does it tell Nigerians everything they might reasonably want to know about their president’s history. The question is: what is in the records, and what is the public legally entitled to see?
That is why the distinction matters in the proceedings before Judge Beryl Howell. The litigation concerns access to government records under the Freedom of Information Act, including disputes about withholding information and redacting documents. Even the Presidency acknowledges that it is a civil disclosure dispute and that Tinubu has asserted privacy protections.
A criminal trial asks whether prosecutors have proved an offence against an accused person. A disclosure case asks whether government agencies have lawfully withheld requested records. Reno keeps answering the first question to avoid confronting the second.
“No conviction” does not mean “no investigative records.” It does not mean “nothing of public interest.” And it certainly does not mean that a letter issued in 2003 settles what should be disclosed in proceedings taking place today.
If Reno believes this letter answers the disclosure dispute, let him identify the passage that does so. Where does it describe the files? Where does it address the documents now being contested? Where does it establish that the information Nigerians seek has already been fully disclosed? Those answers are not in the letter.
There may be lawful grounds for protecting particular information, and the court must decide those questions. But invoking legal exemptions is not the same thing as securing a public declaration that the underlying records contain nothing significant.
Nor does resisting disclosure prove guilt. Politically, however, I believe it makes Tinubu’s position worse: the more his defenders proclaim complete vindication while information remains contested, the more Nigerians are entitled to question the gap between the publicity and the evidence.
A president seeking public trust should expect scrutiny. His supporters cannot demand that Nigerians accept sweeping assurances while dismissing the very records that could help the public assess those assurances.
Reno, stop treating Nigerians as an audience to be managed. Explain the documents honestly. Acknowledge what this letter establishes—and what it does not. We are not asking you to produce a conviction that does not exist. We are asking for transparency about records that your old letter does not explain.
Let the court determine the lawful limits of disclosure. Let everything legally disclosable be released. Then let Nigerians read the evidence and reach informed conclusions. An old letter cannot answer questions it was never written to address.
