•Accuses Atiku of desperation for foreign validation
The Presidency has reacted to the activities of a United States-based lobbying firm, owned by Von Batten Montague, which has in recent times been associated with agitation for the release of President Bola Tinubu’s records in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
An American transparency activist, Aaron Greenspan, has been championing for the release of certain documents in the custody of the FBI in relation to President Tinubu’s forfeiture of over $46,000 to the United States of America government.
Greenspan, who filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, is requesting from the FBI the entire file on Tinubu’s records concerning the period between 1992 and 1993.
Further investigation revealed that Von Batten Montague lobbying firm was allegedly contracted by the African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, AtikuAbubakar, to put the narrative of Tinubu’s FBI records in the front burner in the United States.
An online media platform had on Tuesday reported that the FBI had officially acknowledged that Nigerian President Bola Tinubu was the subject of a criminal investigation for drug trafficking crimes in the US in early 1990s.
Reacting through his X handle, Sunday Dare, Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications to President Tinubu, dismissed the attribution of confirmation of alleged criminal records of Tinubu to the United States government as fake.
The post on Dare’s X handle, @SundayDareSDtitled,”Peddling Political Speculation as Classified Information: Atiku’s $1.2 million Washington Lobbying gamble exposed”, dismissed the report as “political speculation packaged as classified information.”
The presidential spokesperson maintained that there was no official position or view of the United States Government on the alleged criminal records of President Tinubu.
He accused Atiku, believed to be the sponsor of the United States lobbying firm, of “desperately seeking foreign validation for local irrelevance.”
His post read: “The Nigerian connection is exposed directly from the names found on the lobby documents. The incendiary press releases being carefully churned out from Washington are public relations propaganda sheets passed off as the view of the U.S. Government. They are not.
ALSO READ: Why Tinubu wasn’t arrested by US over drug trafficking allegations — Lawyer
“Sane minds must categorically dismiss these reports as fabricated, politically motivated, and entirely unsupported by evidence. The report presents no intelligence document, no named Western official, and no evidence of any exchange involving Nigeria’s secrets or resources.
“It is nothing more than political speculation packaged as classified information. We demand that they produce the so-called ‘highly classified intelligence report’, identify their unnamed sources, and provide tangible evidence for their wild allegations.
“To evaluate these claims with legal rigor and logical integrity requires examining the architecture of this political stunt. Publicly verifiable United States Department of Justice FARA filings confirm that AtikuAbubakar contracted the Washington-based firm Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C. on a lucrative $1.2 million, 12-month retainer.
“The explicit scope of this agreement is not to offer objective governance advisory, but to execute a targeted, partisan campaign designed to ‘counterbalance’ Nigerian government narratives and weaponise historical, legally resolved judicial archives for domestic political leverage ahead of the 2027 general elections.
“Okeke-Von Batten must have conned a desperate AlhajiAbubakarAtiku into believing that he has access to everyone in the Trump administration, including President Trump himself, by falsely representing that he had reached out to President Trump to release the so-called FBI files.
“He has absolute zero to do with what is playing out in the U.S. court system. The case has been active since 2023, and the FBI’s main concern is simply the protection of the techniques by which it gathers information and the safety of its sources. We dare him to reach out to the judge in charge of the case—he’ll be buying himself serious charges of judicial obstruction.
“The self-bestowed appellation of ‘Senior Government Advisor’ is a linguistic sleight of hand. Fact-checking and official FARA documents reveal that Dr. Karl-Marx Edward Okeke-Von Batten—who has also gone by the aliases IkemefunaOkeke, Karl Von Batten, and Dr. Karl-Marx Edward Okeke-Von Batten III; a U.S.-based consultant of Nigerian origin who added the “Von Batten” surname following his marriage to Elizabeth Von Batten—is a commercial lobbyist and the founder of Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C.
“Speculations that he operates as a gun-for-hire whose professional survival depends entirely on generating manufactured controversies for foreign principals who pay for volume and sensationalism are rife. Projecting a commercial lobbyist as an objective geopolitical arbiter from Nigeria is an insult to the intelligence of the Nigerian electorate.”
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