TD If I were advising President Bola Tinubu’s lawyers, I would tell them to stop trying this case on Nigerian television.
Every careless television defence sends more people to the American court records.
And the records are uncomfortable enough without anybody exaggerating them.
So, let us be disciplined and establish only what is documented.
What the 1993 Records Say
In a January 1990 credit application cited by U.S. federal investigators, Bola Tinubu stated that he worked for Mobil Oil Nigeria, took home approximately $2,400 a month, and had no other source of income.
Federal investigators then said First Heritage Bank records showed deposits of approximately $661,000 into his individual money-market account during 1990 and a further $1,216,500 during 1991.
That discrepancy has never been explained.
The federal affidavit states that Tinubu was introduced to First Heritage Bank by Adegboyega Mueez Akande, one of the men investigated in a Chicago heroin-distribution operation.
Tinubu reportedly identified Akande as his cousin on a credit application.
According to Special Agent Kevin Moss, Tinubu acknowledged in a telephone interview from Nigeria that he knew Akande, that he had transferred approximately $100,000 to Akande’s Houston account, and that approximately $80,000 connected with the opening of his First Heritage accounts had come from Akande.
Investigators then spoke to Mobil.
Mobil confirmed that Tinubu was employed as a treasurer.
But according to the affidavit, Mobil told investigators that his job did not involve moving huge sums of corporate money between banks, that he would not have been permitted to hold Mobil’s money in personal accounts, and that Mobil kept no accounts at the suburban Chicago banks in question.
More than $1.4 million was initially seized from accounts involved in the investigation.
The dispute ended in a civil settlement.
Tinubu was never convicted of drug trafficking, and that must be said plainly.
Some of the money was returned.
But $460,000 held in the First Heritage account bearing Bola Tinubu’s name was forfeited to the United States.
The federal decree described those funds as representing proceeds of narcotics trafficking or property involved in financial transactions violating federal money-laundering statutes.
Those are not social-media rumours.
Those are American court documents.
What Happened to the Others
It is worth remembering how this ring came apart because Nigerians are being invited to forget.
Lee Andrew Edwards, the heroin buyer, was jailed.
Abiodun Agbele, Akande’s nephew, was arrested after selling heroin to an undercover agent and then cooperated with investigators in exchange for lighter treatment.
Akande himself had already returned to Nigeria.
The accountant with the extraordinary bank deposits was never charged.
What the FBI Said Last Month
On August 28, 2026, the FBI submitted a sworn declaration in the ongoing Washington FOIA litigation stating that the responsive records were compiled in furtherance of an FBI investigation of multiple individuals for drug-trafficking crimes.
So, when defenders tell Nigerians that Tinubu was not arrested or prosecuted, they are answering a different question.
Nobody should claim that an investigation proves guilt. It does not.
But nobody should pretend that “not convicted” means “never investigated.” It does not.
The Question the FBI Has Now Put on the Table
Here is the part of this story that his lawyers most need to address and most refuse to.
In August, the FBI asked Judge Beryl Howell for permission to explain in private why certain records should stay sealed, and it argued that disclosure could endanger lives.
The exemptions it relies on are the ones that protect law-enforcement sources.
Those are the FBI’s own words, not mine.
That raises a question that no television appearance has answered: in a case more than thirty years old, whose lives does the FBI believe are still at risk, and why?
There is an allegation circulating, including from an American law firm involved in pushing the disclosure, that Tinubu cooperated with U.S. authorities against his former associates in exchange for immunity.
I want to be precise: no court has found that.
The FBI and the Justice Department have not confirmed it.
The documented cooperating witness in this case was Agbele, not Tinubu.
Judge Howell has also upheld the CIA’s refusal to confirm or deny that it holds any records at all.
So, I do not assert it. I ask the question that the FBI’s own filing invites.
If the sealed material is simply an old, closed civil matter, why would its release endanger anyone?
And if it is something more, Nigerians are entitled to know what their President’s lawyers are fighting so hard to keep in a Washington vault.
The Lawyers
President Tinubu’s legal team is currently arguing, in a filing of August 28, that the remaining FBI and DEA material must stay protected on privacy grounds.
His lawyer, Wole Afolabi, then went on Channels Television and argued that if Tinubu had been criminally liable, America would have prosecuted him.
That may be an argument, but it is not an explanation of the money.
If there was nothing consequential in the investigative history, why devote a legal team to keeping the rest of the file sealed?
Where did the enormous deposits come from?
Why did the federal affidavit tie these accounts to men being investigated for heroin trafficking?
Why did $460,000 remain forfeited?
And what exactly is in the material still being fought over in Washington?
The Deloitte Contradiction
Tinubu has publicly explained that a lucrative period with Deloitte & Touche, including an assignment involving National Oil and Aramco, produced an $850,000 bonus and helped make him a millionaire.
Yet, in 2022, Deloitte reportedly responded to a subpoena for his employment records by saying its systems contained no records for Bola Tinubu.
Perhaps there is an explanation. Then give Nigerians the explanation.
Produce the employment records. Produce the compensation records. Produce the banking trail.
Explain the origin of the money.
That is what lawyers representing the President of Africa’s most populous nation should be doing — not touring television studios asking Nigerians to ignore documents because an election will supposedly be decided on promises.
Bigger Than 2027
Nigeria’s President represents more than 200 million people before the world.
Every unresolved question about his financial and legal history becomes an unresolved question hanging over Nigeria.
I find that profoundly embarrassing.
My advice to his lawyers remains simple.
Stop talking around the documents.
Start answering them.
