Court documents showed that one of the lawyers who represented Tinubu in the recent Chicago records case, Christopher Carmichael, filed the motion.
By Jeffrey Agbo
President Bola Tinubu has reportedly launched moves to block his records from being released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States.
This comes ahead of the October 31 deadline slated for the release of the files.
News Band reports that court documents which it is in possession of show Mr Tinubu’s lawyers in the US have filed motions to appear in an ongoing Freedom of Information (FOI) action lodged against US organisations where records that may help answer questions about his identity and decades-long endeavours are kept.
Court documents, it said, showed that one of the lawyers who represented Tinubu in the recent Chicago records case, Christopher Carmichael, filed the motion, dated October 18, 2023, stating that he was a lawyer in good standing to appear in the FOIA lawsuit underway in Washington DC.
“Pursuant to Civil Local Rule 83.2(c), Bryan A. Carey moves for the admission and appearance of attorney Christopher Carmichael pro hac vice in the above-entitled action,” Mr Carey, who practices in DC said on Mr Carmichael’s behalf.
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“This motion is supported by the Declaration of Christopher Carmichael. As set forth in Mr. Carmichael’s declaration, he is admitted and an active member in good standing.”
On September 11, the FBI agreed to turn over 2,500 pages of response to information on Tinubu who was sworn in as Nigeria’s president on May 29, 2023 following a controversial election in February.
Tinubu was previously investigated for narcotics trafficking in the US in the 1990s, during which he was compelled to forfeit $460,000 via a federal court order in Chicago.
Tinubu’s major opponents, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, have filed their appeals at the Supreme Court after the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) upheld Tinubu’s victory.