Nigeria: Tinubu Was Under Investigation for Drugs - FBI

What the report says

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has become the focus of renewed scrutiny after a sworn filing in a U.S. federal court said the FBI had investigated him in connection with drug-trafficking matters in the early 1990s. The declaration, submitted on August 28, 2026, was filed in Washington, D.C., as part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act case seeking FBI records tied to Tinubu, according to Daily Trust’s report republished by AllAfrica.

The FBI filing said the relevant records were created during an investigation of several people for drug-trafficking crimes and noted that a court had already acknowledged that Tinubu had been investigated. The article said the request is linked to activist Aaron Greenspan and includes efforts to obtain the FBI’s full file and interview records from 1992 to 1993. The publication also noted that a 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell required the FBI and DEA to stop using “Glomar” refusals and to process non-exempt records.

The report said the court ruling did not establish that Tinubu committed any offence or was convicted. It also said the FBI continues to withhold some material under privacy and law-enforcement exemptions. Portions of the declaration were publicized by a Washington-based lobbying firm associated with former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, prompting a strong rebuttal from Tinubu’s media office, which called the episode politically motivated and unsupported by evidence.

The case matters because it touches on a long-running transparency dispute in the United States while also feeding into Nigeria’s political debate ahead of the 2027 election cycle.