A US-based political advisory and lobbying firm has claimed that the FBI is holding wiretap material linked to President Bola Tinubu as part of records from an investigation into alleged heroin trafficking.
Von Batten-Montague-York made the claim in a statement posted on its verified X account on Thursday. The firm said an FBI filing before a US federal court asked that highly sensitive wiretap recordings contained in records responsive to requests concerning Tinubu should not be released publicly.
The firm said the FBI acknowledged that the records connected to Tinubu contained wiretap material. It further claimed that the agency said the recordings were compiled during an investigation involving multiple individuals in connection with alleged heroin-trafficking crimes.
Von Batten-Montague-York went beyond what it said was contained in the filing, interpreting the documents as evidence that Tinubu himself was captured on recordings connected to the investigation. The firm wrote that, in its reading of the document, the FBI had the Nigerian president “on tape connected to heroin-trafficking crimes.” That remains a claim by the lobbying firm, rather than a finding by a US court.
The firm also said the FBI relied on FOIA Exemption 3 and Sections 2510–2520 of the US Code, provisions governing restrictions around wiretap information. It argued that the court should reject the FBI’s position and order the disputed material released.
The controversy is part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act case in the US District Court for the District of Columbia involving requests for records held by US agencies concerning Tinubu. The Presidency has stressed that the proceeding is a civil records-disclosure dispute, not a criminal case against the Nigerian president, and that no US court has found Tinubu guilty of criminal wrongdoing in the matter.
The Presidency has also said the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have produced hundreds of pages of records, with some information withheld or redacted under US law. The legal dispute centres on whether those redactions and withheld materials are permitted under FOIA.
Von Batten-Montague-York is continuing to push for the release of the disputed records. The firm has called on the court to make the wiretap material public, arguing that if the recordings contain evidence involving Tinubu and alleged drug trafficking, the public should know what they contain.
The competing claims have added a new political dimension to the records case, but the contents of any alleged recordings have not been made public. Until the court rules on the disputed material, claims about what the recordings prove should be treated as allegations rather than established facts.
