Aaron Greenspan accuses Tinubu of delay tactics to stall release of records ahead of Nigeria’s Supreme Court judgment

Aaron Greenspan, the owner of PlainSite, a platform advocating for data transparency to combat corruption in public service, has characterized President Bola Tinubu as an “alleged criminal” employing delay tactics to obstruct the release of his records by U.S. security agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

“Bola Ahmed Tinubu is an alleged criminal attempting to buy time in a desperate bid to retain power in Nigeria, which the FOIA materials in this action directly threaten,” stated Mr. Greenspan in his remarks to the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Columbia in Washington D.C. on Monday.

Mr. Greenspan told the U.S. Court that the Nigerian president’s last-minute effort to intervene in the five-month-old lawsuit was merely a ploy to buy time and prevent his opponents from using the records against him in Nigeria’s Supreme Court, where his election victory is under intense dispute.

The PlainSite owner had collaborated with journalist David Hundeyin to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Mr. Tinubu’s records since 2022, and the FBI is scheduled to release these records in October.

His response came shortly after Mr. Tinubu filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit, asserting that he would be “adversely affected” if his intervention request was denied.

However, Mr. Greenspan saw through Mr. Tinubu’s delay tactics, which he believes are aimed at deceiving the U.S. court into postponing the release of his records because he understands that these documents could potentially damage his case in Nigeria’s apex court.

Describing Tinubu’s motion as a “last-ditch attempt at buying time,” Mr. Greenspan emphasized that the case had been pending in open court for approximately five months and had garnered significant media coverage in Nigeria.

“The timing of Tinubu’s submission is suspicious, given the Nigerian Supreme Court’s simultaneous proceedings, and should be treated as meritless accordingly,” Mr. Greenspan added.

Mr. Tinubu is grappling with a legal setback from the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, where judges Nancy Maldonado and Jeffrey Gilbert ordered Chicago State University (CSU) to grant his primary opponent, Atiku Abubakar, access to all educational records and to depose registrar Caleb Westberg.

During Mr. Westberg’s deposition on October 3, he stated that he could not authenticate the certificate Mr. Tinubu submitted to Nigeria’s electoral commission, INEC, because the school did not issue the document.

Mr. Tinubu is now making every effort to prevent the Supreme Court from admitting the deposition as evidence and may be unwilling to face the consequences of his records, whether criminal or otherwise, being made public.