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FACT-CHECK: Did Atiku lose $2.5m after Tinubu’s US court victory?

Nurudeen Akewushola
Nurudeen Akewushola
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A Facebook post claiming that former vice president Atiku Abubakar has lost $2.5 million following a US court ruling involving Nigerian president Bola Tinubu, lobbyist Karl Von Batten and Aaron Greenspan has circulated online.

The post, shared by Facebook user Yomi Osoba on 3 November 2026, carries the headline: “BREAKING: PBAT Wins. Owo Atiku tiwogbo ($2.5m). Atiku and lobbyist Karl Von Batten and Greenspan loose.”

“Owo ti Atiku ti wogbo” is a Yoruba expression meaning “Atiku’s money has gone.”

It reproduces a statement announcing that the US District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Aaron Greenspan’s request to obtain information from Tinubu and DCI Group, denied Von Batten’s application to file an amicus brief and rejected Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment.

The post implies that the ruling represents a financial and legal setback for Atiku and those associated with him. However, while Atiku has a documented lobbying contract with Von Batten’s firm, the court proceedings and available financial records do not establish that Atiku funded Greenspan’s litigation with $2.5 million or that he lost that amount as a result of the ruling.

CLAIM

Atiku Abubakar has lost $2.5 million following a US court ruling in which Tinubu defeated Aaron Greenspan and Karl Von Batten.

FINDINGS

Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is MISLEADING.

A review of the court records shows that the case, Aaron Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys et al., was filed in June 2023 at the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Greenspan, an American entrepreneur and founder of PlainSite, filed the lawsuit after several US federal agencies declined to confirm or deny the existence of records relating to an investigation into a Chicago-based heroin-trafficking and money-laundering operation in the early 1990s.

His Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sought investigative records relating to four individuals, including Bola Tinubu and Abiodun Agbele. The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other agencies were among those initially approached.

Tinubu subsequently intervened in the case, citing his privacy interests in the requested records. This allowed him to participate in the proceedings to protect his interests concerning the disclosure of the information.

In an earlier ruling delivered in April 2025, Judge Beryl Howell held that the FBI and DEA could not rely on their initial refusal to confirm or deny the existence of the requested records. The court found that earlier public court filings had already acknowledged that Tinubu and Agbele were investigated in connection with the operation.

The ruling did not establish that Tinubu committed any crime. Rather, it addressed whether the agencies could continue using the so-called “Glomar response”, a legal approach that allows government agencies to refuse to confirm or deny the existence of requested records.

What did the October ruling say?

The 30 October 2026, judgment addressed a subsequent round of arguments over the agencies’ withholding of records.

According to the court’s memorandum opinion, Greenspan challenged the adequacy of the FBI and DEA searches and the legal exemptions they relied on to withhold information.

During the proceedings, Greenspan also sought permission to obtain limited discovery from Tinubu and DCI Group over alleged cyberattacks on his website. He argued that the attacks could help establish who was monitoring the litigation and potentially interfering with access to case-related materials.

However, Judge Howell rejected the request, finding that the proposed discovery was not sufficiently relevant to the underlying FOIA dispute. The judge explained that investigating the source of the alleged cyberattacks would not help determine whether the FBI and DEA had properly searched for or withheld records requested under FOIA.

The court also rejected Karl Von Batten’s application to file an amicus curiae brief. An amicus brief is a submission by a person or organisation that is not a party to a case but seeks to offer information or arguments that may assist the court.

Additionally, the judge denied Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment. However, the ruling was not an outright victory for Tinubu or the government agencies.

Although the judge denied Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment, she granted the FBI and DEA’s cross-motion for summary judgment only in part and denied it in part.

The judge found that the agencies had not sufficiently justified some of their exemptions for withholding records. She directed them to provide supplementary declarations explaining their decisions, particularly concerning information already disclosed in public court records, privacy interests and the foreseeable harm that could result from disclosure.

This means that while Greenspan and Von Batten lost their respective applications, the court did not resolve the entire FOIA dispute in the government’s favour. The agencies were required to provide further explanations to justify some of their decisions to withhold records.

The court judgment identifies Aaron Greenspan as the plaintiff, the federal agencies as defendants and Tinubu as an intervenor-defendant. It identifies Karl Von Batten as a non-party who sought permission to file an amicus brief. Atiku Abubakar is not listed as a party to the case.

What is Atiku’s connection to Von Batten?

However, Atiku does have a documented financial relationship with Von Batten’s lobbying firm. A US Department of Justice Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filing, reported by Premium Times, shows that Atiku signed a 12-month, $1.2 million lobbying and strategic advisory agreement with Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C., in March 2026.

The agreement establishes that Atiku engaged the firm for lobbying and strategic advisory services in the United States. However, it does not establish that the firm represented Atiku in Greenspan’s FOIA litigation or that Atiku financed the case.

Furthermore, the $2.5 million figure stated in the Facebook post is not established by the court judgment or the cited FARA agreement. The available documents do not show that Atiku paid $2.5 million to Greenspan or Von Batten in connection with the litigation or that he lost that amount following the court’s decision.

A 1 November report by TheCable also reported the rejection of Greenspan’s request to obtain information from Tinubu over the alleged cyberattacks.

VERDICT

The claim is MISLEADING. A US federal court rejected Aaron Greenspan’s request for limited discovery from Tinubu and DCI Group, denied Karl Von Batten’s application to file an amicus brief and dismissed Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment.

Atiku Abubakar also has a documented $1.2 million lobbying agreement with Von Batten’s firm. However, Atiku was not a party to the litigation, the court did not conclude the entire FOIA case in Tinubu’s favour, and there is no evidence in the court judgment or available FARA filing that Atiku lost or paid $2.5 million to finance the litigation.

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Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via nyahaya@icirnigeria.org and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.

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