Nigerian journalist, David Hundeyin, has claimed the United States government has described President Bola Tinubu as a “Special CIA Asset” and as such, Nigerians do not have the right to access his past records.

Hundeyin, in a post on X on Tuesday night, narrated how the US refused to grant him access to Tinubu’s records following an application he filed last year seeking to compel top US law enforcement agencies to hasten the release of confidential information on President Tinubu.

According to Hundeyin, the US government, in a memorandum filed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, denied him or any other Nigerian access to Tinubu’s past drug trafficking investigation records.

“Yesterday (Monday) in federal court, the CIA, FBI, and DEA filed a memorandum opposing our motion for summary judgment in the FOIA disclosure case about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s drug trafficking investigation records, where we are seeking to have the redactions removed from the (partially released) files,” he wrote.

“In the filing, the CIA effectively confirmed that Nigeria’s sitting president is an active CIA asset. An excerpt from the CIA filing reads:

“Human sources can be expected to furnish information to the CIA only when they are confident the CIA can and will do everything in its power to prevent the public disclosure of their cooperation.

“In the case of a person who has been cooperating with the CIA, official confirmation of that cooperation could cause the targets to take retaliatory action against that person or against their family or friends.

“It also places in jeopardy every individual with whom the cooperating individual has had contact. Thus, the indiscretion of one source in a chain of intelligence sources can damage an entire spectrum of sources.

“As such, confirming or denying the existence of records on a particular foreign national, like Tinubu, reasonably could be expected to cause damage to U.S. national security by indicating whether or not the CIA maintained any human intelligence sources related to Tinubu, and identifying any access or lack of access any such sources had to intelligence concerning him”.

Hundeyin added: “And if that wasn’t bad enough, the DEA’s filing included a paragraph that literally said: “We oppose full, unredacted disclosure of the DEA’s Bola Tinubu heroin trafficking investigation records because we believe that while Nigerians have a right to be informed about what their government is up to, they do not have a right to know what their president is up to.’

“At this point, I think there is nothing more to be said about the direct role that the US government plays in ensuring that Africa is constantly destabilised and afflicted with terrible leaders who create poverty and devastation.”