Aaron Greenspan Accuses FBI, DEA of Playing Politics, Deliberately Delaying Release of Unredacted Tinubu Drug Files “As Favour To Nigerian President”

PlainSite Founder, Aaron Greenspan, has accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of “deliberately playing politics” and stalling the release of unredacted drug files linked to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, citing the delay as a political favour to Tinubu.

In a joint status report filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Greenspan, who, alongside West Africa Weekly’s Editor-in-Chief, David Hundeyin, sued the FBI, DOJ, CIA, and DEA, IRS, State and Justice Department and won, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), noted, in writing, that the agencies have been in “deliberate violation” of an April 8 court order requiring them to search for and produce non-exempt records.

It will be recalled that Judge Beryl A. Howell, who made the ruling on April 8, stated that keeping such information away from public knowledge using Glomar responses under the excuse of individual privacy exemptions is “neither logical nor plausible.”

More so, the FOIA filing centres on Greenspan’s requests for records that include Tinubu’s name, as well as those of Abiodun Agbele. While the DEA has processed 238 pages, releasing 50 with heavy redactions and withholding most of the rest under FOIA exemptions 3, 6, 7(C), 7(D), 7(E), and 7(F).

According to Greenspan, no pages mentioning Tinubu have been produced as he sought justification for the withheld pages.

On the other hand, the FBI had earlier released heavily redacted files in batches and has yet to release any records mentioning Tinubu, citing a backlog of about 10,000 FOIA requests and limited resources, with its first interim release projected for December 1, 2025.

Greenspan, who dismissed the FBI’s timeline, argued the bureau could produce all relevant records now if it wanted to, and has sought the Court’s order for immediate production. Notably in his filing, he accused the FBI and DEA of protecting Tinubu for political reasons and compared the delay to past Justice Department diversions of resources for politically sensitive cases.

“This Court should not encourage such gamesmanship,” Greenspan wrote, adding that the agencies’ actions undermine FOIA’s purpose and the public’s right to know. He is also seeking to unseal any federal criminal dockets in which Tinubu or Agbele are named as defendants.

While the FBI and DEA proposed that the next status report be submitted to apprise the Court on or before September 17, 2025, Greenspan proposed September 1, 2025.

Contrary to Greenspan’s proposed date, United States Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, in a footnote, noted that September 1 coincides with a federal holiday and that he has longstanding plans to be out of the office for a personal family commitment out-of-state from September 4, 2025.

West Africa Weekly, as always, will closely monitor this story and update it as it unfolds. You can also read the full filing here.

About The Author

Mayowa Durosinmi

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M. Durosinmi is a West Africa Weekly investigative reporter covering Politics, Human Rights, Health, and Security in West Africa and the Sahel Region

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