FOIA: CIA Confirms Nigeria’s Sitting President Tinubu as its Active Asset

The Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, on Monday confirmed that Nigeria’s sitting President, Bola Tinubu, is its active asset.

This was revealed at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia as the CIA, FBI, and DEA filed a memorandum opposing a civil lawsuit requesting summary judgment and redactions in the Freedom of Information (FOIA) disclosure case about President Tinubu’s drug trafficking investigation records.

As contained in the filing, the intelligence agency [CIA] effectively confirmed President Tinubu as its active asset.

Human sources can be expected to furnish information to the CIA only when they are confident the CIA can and will do everything in its power to prevent the public disclosure of their cooperation,” the statement reads, adding, ‘In the case of a person who has been cooperating with the CIA, official confirmation of that cooperation could cause the targets to take retaliatory action against that person or against their family or friends.’

“It also places in jeopardy every individual with whom the cooperating individual has had contact. Thus, the indiscretion of one source in a chain of intelligence sources can damage an entire spectrum of sources,” the statement added.

Related News: With FBI Files Anti-Redaction Case In US Court, Tinubu Meets With FBI Director Christopher Wray

As such, confirming or denying the existence of records on a particular foreign national, like Tinubu, reasonably could be expected to cause damage to U.S. national security by indicating whether or not the CIA maintained any human intelligence sources related to Tinubu and identifying any access or lack of access any such sources had to intelligence concerning him, the CIA noted.

The FOIA case was initiated in 2022/2023 by West Africa Weekly‘s Editor-in-Chief, David Hundeyin, in collaboration with PlainSite Founder Aaron Greenspan, who is seeking to have the redactions from the previously and partially released files.

With the CIA playing its card on the “We can neither confirm nor deny” tactics to protect President Tinubu, which it considered its asset, it opposed the redactions request, citing the exemption of privacy rights under the FOIA.

The DEA, an agency party to the suit, also included a paragraph in the filing indicating opposition to the redactions requested by the plaintiffs – Hundeyin and Greenspan.

We oppose full, unredacted disclosure of the DEA’s Bola Tinubu heroin trafficking investigation records because we believe that while Nigerians have a right to be informed about what their government is up to, they do not have a right to know what their president is up to,” the statement reads.

As a now-confirmed CIA asset, President Tinubu poses as an asset that can be used to influence the political, social, or economic outcomes of Nigeria, a country once ranked West Africa’s biggest economy until recently ranked fourth in April 2024.

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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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Joy Chukwu

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