Atiku To FBI: Protecting Investigative Methods Must Not Hide Tinubu Records

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has faulted the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) over its bid to keep some records relating to President Bola Tinubu’s alleged drug-trafficking investigation confidential, insisting that protecting investigative methods should not become a cover for withholding information of legitimate public interest.

Atiku, in a statement issued on Saturday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said Nigerians could not be expected to accept a blanket claim that releasing the records would endanger lives when citizens were already facing widespread hardship, insecurity and deaths under Tinubu’s administration.

Reacting to the FBI’s submission before a US court that disclosure of certain records could jeopardise lives and investigative processes, Atiku described the agency’s position as deeply ironic in light of Nigeria’s current realities.

“The FBI says disclosure could endanger lives. Which lives? Nigerians are already dying,” he said.

The former vice president argued that in the three and a half years since Tinubu assumed office, the administration’s economic policies had worsened the living conditions of millions of Nigerians.

According to him, many citizens had been killed by terrorists and bandits, while others had died from hunger, inability to afford medical treatment and the crushing economic burden of providing basic necessities for their families.

“Families that once managed three meals now struggle for one. Parents cannot afford medicines for sick children. Breadwinners are buckling under debt and unbearable economic pressure. This is the human cost of Tinubu’s senseless removal of fuel subsidy without a credible plan to protect ordinary Nigerians,” Atiku stated.

He maintained that “danger to life” was not merely a legal argument for Nigerians but an everyday experience in homes, hospitals, farms, highways and communities across the country.

Atiku also used the opportunity to defend his promise to restore fuel subsidy if elected president, saying the policy was non-negotiable because it directly affected the survival of ordinary Nigerians.

“I will not apologise for choosing the survival of Nigerians over economic dogma. The subsidy I propose will be targeted, transparently financed, capped and independently audited, with safeguards against corruption, diversion and criminal arbitrage,” he said.

He argued that fuel prices influence transportation costs, food prices, energy costs, production and employment, all of which determine whether Nigerian families can meet their basic needs.

“So when Tinubu boasts that subsidy is gone, Nigerians should ask him what exactly he is celebrating: the empty cooking pots, abandoned medical prescriptions, unaffordable transport fares or businesses struggling to survive?

“Atiku’s Nigeria will not measure economic success by how much suffering citizens can endure.”

Addressing the FBI directly, Atiku said his demand was not for the release of sensitive operational details that could compromise investigations or endanger law enforcement personnel.

“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.”

He stressed that Nigerians had a democratic right to know the history and character of those occupying the nation’s highest office, provided the information could lawfully be disclosed.

“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,” he said.

Atiku added that where such information resides with American law enforcement and can legally be released, “the principles of openness and democratic accountability demand that it should not be unnecessarily hidden.”

He concluded with a direct appeal to the FBI:

“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 came a day after the FBI asked a US District Court in Washington, D.C., for permission to file a confidential declaration explaining why it is withholding some records relating to allegations linking President Tinubu to a decades-old drug-trafficking investigation in the United States.