The United States (U.S.) District Court of Columbia has declined a request to force the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to release information on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
An American, Aaron Greenspan had filed the emergency motion seeking to compel the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA), the Department of State, FBI, IRS, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the CIA to immediately release the documents following the Nigerian Supreme Court’s hearing of appeals from the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi against Tinubu.
Greenspan, the founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Think Computer Corporation, an Information Technology consulting service pleaded for a quick release of the documents because they needed to be presented at the Supreme Court.
He told the court that the Supreme Court deliberately moved the hearing of the appeals by Atiku and Obi to October 23 to render his suit before the US court nugatory.
He had asked that the documents on Tinubu be released to him latest October 31.
Declining the request, Beryl Howell, the judge, said Greenspan did not meet the preconditions for granting a request of that nature.
Howell said: “Plaintiff has failed even to attempt to argue how his request may overcome those exemptions and achieve a likelihood of success on the merits.
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“This failure to address this important factor in his Emergency Motion weighs strongly in favour of denying his motion.
“Plaintiff falls far short of satisfying this standard. He has not supplied the court with any indication of a concrete, actual threat that he will suffer in the absence of an injunction.
“While his Emergency Motion states that a Nigerian Supreme Court hearing is scheduled to occur in the coming days, plaintiff cites no injury he will suffer that is in any way traceable to the relief requested in this motion.”
The judge added that the request “may be of a highly sensitive and private nature” and that “the subject of those documents, Bola A. Tinubu, has had no opportunity to protect his privacy interests in any such records.”
“For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ORDERED that plaintiff’s Emergency Motion for a Hearing to Compel Immediate Document Production, ECF No. 17 is DENIED. SO ORDERED,” the judge said.
Greenspan had accused the law enforcement agencies of violating the freedom of information act by not releasing the confidential information within the stipulated time.
He said the documents related to “purported federal investigations into President Tinubu and one Mueez Adegboyega Akande, who is now deceased.”
