VON Batten-Montague-York, L.C., a Washington-based lobbying firm, says it has commenced the distribution of United States Department of Justice (DOJ) records concerning allegations of drug trafficking involving President Bola Tinubu to members of the Donald Trump administration, Congress and senior congressional staff.
News Point Nigeria reports that the firm was engaged by Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), in March under a 12-month lobbying contract worth $1.2 million.
The contract was aimed at strengthening Atiku’s reputational standing in the United States, facilitating engagements with US officials and lawmakers, and countering what the agreement described as the Nigerian government’s lobbying narratives.
In a statement posted on X, the lobbying firm said several officials within the US government were previously unaware of the DOJ allegations involving Tinubu and that it intended to ensure that the complete collection of DOJ court filings, supporting affidavits and related federal court decisions were brought to the attention of President Donald Trump and relevant authorities.
“Following discussions with members of the @realDonaldTrump Administration, Congress, and senior congressional staff, we began providing more than 60 pages of @TheJusticeDept documents concerning the DOJ’s allegations of Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s (@officialABAT) alleged involvement in a heroin trafficking investigation spanning the late 1980s and early 1990s,” the firm wrote.
The firm also released a document titled: “Background and Chronology of the 1993 U.S. Department of Justice Heroin-Proceeds Forfeiture Case and the 2023 FOIA Litigation Concerning Alleged Heroin Trafficking from Nigeria to the United States Involving Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the current President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
According to the document circulated by Von Batten-Montague-York, the United States Department of Justice had alleged that a Nigeria-based heroin trafficking organisation imported white heroin into the United States and transported it from Nigeria to Chicago, where it was distributed through members and associates of the group.
The individuals identified in the government’s allegations in United States v. Funds in Account No. 263226700 et al., No. 93 C 4483, were Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Adegboyega Mueez Akande and Abiodun Agbele.
The document stated that between 1988 and 1991, federal investigators examined a heroin trafficking organisation operating in the United States and alleged that proceeds from the organisation were deposited into bank accounts in the US owned and controlled by Tinubu.
It stated that Tinubu opened multiple bank accounts that he owned and controlled, which were allegedly used to receive and transfer funds described by investigators as proceeds from heroin trafficking.
The document described Akande as a longtime acquaintance of Tinubu whom the DOJ alleged was the leader of the trafficking organisation and who allegedly provided funds used by Tinubu to open one of the accounts.
It also described Agbele as an associate whom Tinubu said he met through Akande, adding that Tinubu acknowledged knowing Agbele and associating with him in both Nigeria and the United States.
According to the document, the DOJ alleged that Agbele sold heroin on behalf of the organisation before he was arrested while selling heroin to an undercover law enforcement officer and later cooperated with federal investigators.
The document stated that the DOJ filed a forfeiture case in 1993 at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, seeking the forfeiture of funds it described as proceeds of heroin trafficking or property involved in money laundering.
It added that the DOJ subsequently seized the funds identified in the complaint and that the matter was resolved through a negotiated civil forfeiture settlement, under which a portion of the funds was forfeited to the United States government.
The document further traced subsequent attempts to obtain records connected to the case, stating that journalist Aaron Greenspan filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in 2023 seeking records from several federal agencies relating to the historical investigation.
According to the chronology, a US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in 2025 that some federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), could not rely on a blanket refusal to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records for parts of the FOIA request.
The court, according to the document, ordered the agencies to process relevant records in line with FOIA requirements.
The chronology stated that the litigation remains ongoing and added that, following engagements with members of the White House and senior congressional staff, the records, court documents and FOIA decisions were being provided to several House and Senate committees “for informational and oversight purposes”.
The firm said the move was connected to Nigeria’s strategic relationship with the United States and reports that President Tinubu was seeking a meeting with Trump during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly.
The issue of Tinubu’s US forfeiture case had previously featured prominently in legal proceedings arising from the 2023 presidential election.
Peter Obi, former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, and Atiku Abubakar, then presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had argued before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that Tinubu should have been disqualified over the 1993 civil forfeiture of $460,000 in the United States.
However, in its judgment, the PEPC held that the petitioners failed to establish that Tinubu had been convicted of any criminal offence in the United States.
The court also ruled that the forfeiture proceedings were civil in nature and that the evidence before it did not establish that Tinubu provided false information to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by failing to disclose the forfeiture.