Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has called on the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to release records concerning President Bola Tinubu that can legally be made public.
The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) made the demand while reacting to the FBI’s request to keep some details about its records on Tinubu away from public view.
Naija News reports that the FBI recently asked a United States District Court in Washington, DC, for permission to submit confidential explanations on why some records linked to its investigations cannot be released publicly.
The agency said revealing certain information could risk individuals and affect protected investigative interests.
However, Atiku rejected the argument that the records should remain hidden where the law allows them to be disclosed.
In a statement issued Saturday in Abuja by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the FBI could protect sensitive information, including the identities of agents and confidential sources, while still making other releasable records available to the public.
“The FBI says disclosure could endanger lives. Which lives? Nigerians are already dying. Fuel affects transportation. Transportation affects food prices. Energy affects production. Production affects jobs. All of them determine whether an ordinary Nigerian family can survive until the end of the month.
“Protect your agents. Protect your sources. Protect legitimate investigative methods. Redact whatever American law genuinely requires you to redact. But do not stretch those protections until they become a bulletproof vest for Tinubu. Our demand of American law enforcement is not a call to interfere in Nigeria’s politics.
“It is a humanitarian and democratic appeal rooted in the principle that people have a right to information legitimately available about those who exercise enormous power over their lives. Protect your investigators. Protect your sources. Protect your methods. But do not protect the truth from Nigerians. Our people are already paying for bad governance with their lives”, the statement read in part.
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