Following recent reports claiming that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released “criminal records” on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to a US court, former presidential aide and Ambassador-Designate Reno Omokri has dismissed the claims as misleading. Omokri, in a statement, said the reports suggesting that the FBI……
Following recent reports claiming that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released “criminal records” on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to a US court, former presidential aide and Ambassador-Designate Reno Omokri has dismissed the claims as misleading.
Omokri, in a statement, said the reports suggesting that the FBI had submitted Tinubu’s records to US District Judge Howell Beryl were based on a misrepresentation of the nature of FBI records.
He said he travelled to Chicago, Illinois, between September 18 and 20, 2022, to independently investigate claims surrounding Tinubu’s records and found them to be unfounded.
“President Bola Tinubu has no criminal record in the United States, Nigeria, or anywhere else, and the FBI has not provided any criminal record on the President to anyone because none exists,” Omokri said.
He acknowledged that the FBI may have records containing Tinubu’s name but stressed that such records should not automatically be interpreted as criminal records.
“Yes, FBI records may contain his name, but they are NOT criminal records,” he said.
According to Omokri, the FBI maintains extensive non-criminal records on US citizens, residents and foreign nationals through its Central Records Systems and Next Generation Identification database.
He explained that such records can result from routine background checks, including those conducted for US visa applicants, and may contain biographical, biometric and other personal information.
“Thus, as a US citizen or resident, or even as a foreign national, if your name is run through the FBI databases, it is likely to bring up hundreds of pages of records. This does not mean that the records are criminal. In most cases, they will be benign,” he said.
Omokri also referred to correspondence between the US Embassy and Nigerian authorities in 2003, when Tinubu was governor of Lagos State.
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He said the then Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, wrote to the US Embassy on February 3, 2003, seeking information on any FBI criminal records involving Tinubu.
According to Omokri, the embassy responded the following day with information that cleared Tinubu of criminal records.
He said the correspondence was consistent with his findings during his 2022 visit to Chicago, where he investigated Tinubu’s academic and other records despite being a member of the opposition at the time.
“This was consistent with my findings when I visited Chicago in 2022, as a member of the opposition, to establish the truth about then-Presidential candidate Bola Tinubu’s academic and other records,” he said.
Omokri urged Nigerians to distinguish between general FBI records and criminal records, maintaining that the appearance of a person’s name in an FBI database does not by itself establish criminal conduct.
He also called for independent verification of the correspondence from the US Embassy by those questioning its authenticity.
“Those who may question the authenticity of this document may also wish to contact the US Embassy in Abuja or Lagos for clarification,” he said.
