A United States federal court has rejected a request by Aaron Greenspan to obtain additional information from Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and DCI Group in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit involving American law enforcement agencies.
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in a ruling delivered on October 30, declined Greenspan’s application for limited discovery relating to alleged cyberattacks on his website, finding that the proposed inquiry was not sufficiently connected to the issues before it in the case involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The development was disclosed by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, in a post on his X account.
According to the information provided, the court held that the FOIA proceedings could not be used to pursue inquiries outside the legal questions arising from Greenspan’s request for information from the American agencies.
Reacting to the ruling, attorney Christopher W. Carmichael said the decision reinforced the need to keep the proceedings within the scope of the dispute.
“The Court’s decision makes clear that this Freedom of Information Act proceeding cannot be used to pursue discovery unrelated to the legal questions before it,” Carmichael said.
He added that the rejection of the discovery request against Tinubu and DCI Group showed the importance of restricting the case to matters properly before the court.
The court also reportedly dismissed a separate application by Karl Von Batten, a nonparty to the case, seeking permission to submit an amicus curiae brief, commonly known as a friend-of-the-court submission.
Greenspan’s related request for judicial notice was also denied.
In another decision, the court rejected Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment, meaning the plaintiff did not obtain the requested judgment at that stage of the proceedings.
Attorney Oluwole Afolabi also commented on the decisions, saying the court had rejected both the summary judgment application and the request to introduce an amicus brief.
“The Court also denied the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and rejected a separate request to introduce an amicus brief,” Afolabi said.
He, however, noted that the underlying FOIA issues remained before the court, adding that the latest decisions had established procedural boundaries for the litigation.
The ruling represents a procedural development in the ongoing dispute, but it does not amount to a final determination of the underlying FOIA claims involving the FBI and DEA.
Further proceedings will therefore depend on the outstanding issues before the court and any subsequent decisions in the case.
