Tinubu, the 1993 U.S. Records, and the Nigeria We Should Really Be Talking About -By Prof. John Egbeazien Oshodi

As Nigeria moves closer to another presidential election season, an old controversy involving President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and United States law-enforcement records has once again returned to public attention.

Political opponents are raising questions about records connected to investigations dating back to the early 1990s. There is now an ongoing Freedom of Information Act battle in the United States over what additional FBI and other government records should be released and what information may lawfully remain withheld.

Political opponents have every right to raise issues they believe are relevant to the character, history, and suitability of someone seeking public office. That is part of democratic politics. President Tinubu and his lawyers likewise have the right to defend his interests through lawful processes.

My concern is something different.

I do not support drug dealing, whether the matter involves allegations arising in a civil proceeding or conduct resulting in criminal prosecution. Drug trafficking destroys individuals, families, and communities. As a forensic and clinical psychologist and criminal justice specialist, I would never minimize its seriousness.

At the same time, I have no interest in pretending to know what is contained in secret FBI records that neither I nor the Nigerian public has seen. We should resist turning speculation into fact.

There is also another fact that should not escape us: the events at the center of this controversy occurred more than three decades ago.

The current American court proceedings may determine what additional historical records become public. Let that lawful process take its course. If additional records are released, they can be examined based on their actual contents rather than political speculation.

Let me also be clear: I am not writing this for Tinubu, against Tinubu, for Atiku, for Obi, or for any other politician. I am writing about the pain of ordinary Nigerians and about a nation whose enormous human and natural potential continues to be weakened by insecurity, economic hardship, inadequate healthcare, and fragile public institutions.

That is where my concern lies.

But Nigerians must ask another question:

What about Nigeria today?

A Country Cannot Live Permanently in 1993

Nigeria is confronting problems that are happening now, affecting people now, and, in some instances, costing lives now.

Families are struggling with the cost of food, transportation, housing, education, and basic necessities. Many Nigerians continue to confront insecurity. Healthcare remains inaccessible or inadequate for too many citizens. Young people face uncertainty about employment and their futures.

Then there is the condition of our institutions.

The police require deeper professionalization, adequate resources, accountability, modern training, and stronger public trust. The courts must be sufficiently independent, accessible, efficient, and trusted by ordinary citizens. Government institutions must work regardless of who occupies Aso Rock.

These are not abstract political questions. They affect people’s daily lives.

A mother worried about feeding her children is dealing with today’s Nigeria.

A family afraid of kidnapping or violent crime is dealing with today’s Nigeria.

A sick person unable to obtain adequate medical treatment is dealing with today’s Nigeria.

A citizen who reports a crime but lacks confidence that the police or courts will deliver justice is dealing with today’s Nigeria.

That Nigeria deserves at least as much national attention as an American investigation from the early 1990s.

Elections Should Be About Accountability in the Present

As a psychologist, I am particularly interested in what happens when political attention becomes dominated by emotionally powerful narratives.

Fear, anger, suspicion, scandal, and accusations easily capture public attention. Once activated, they can push complicated policy questions into the background.

Political campaigns understand this very well.

It is much easier to make people argue about personalities than to make leaders explain why institutions remain weak.

It is easier to circulate accusations than to explain how Nigeria will build a professional police system.

It is easier to revive an old controversy than to explain how millions of citizens will obtain affordable healthcare.

It is easier to attack an opponent’s history than to present measurable plans for reducing insecurity, strengthening the courts, creating economic opportunity, and improving everyday life.

This applies not merely to opponents of President Tinubu. It applies equally to Tinubu, his party, opposition parties, candidates, supporters, and political movements.

Every person asking Nigerians for political power in 2027 should expect serious scrutiny, not only concerning personal history but also concerning what that person proposes to do about the Nigeria that exists today.

Let the Records Come, But Let the Questions Come Too

If American law requires additional records concerning Tinubu to be released, let the American judicial process determine that.

If some records are lawfully protected because releasing them would expose confidential sources, law-enforcement methods, private information, or endanger individuals, let the court determine that as well.

Nigerians do not need to prejudge the contents.

But while politicians debate records from more than thirty years ago, citizens should insist upon answers to questions about the country standing before us in 2026.

How will insecurity be reduced?

How will the police become more professional, accountable, adequately equipped, and trusted?

How will Nigerians receive affordable and competent healthcare?

How will the judicial system become faster, stronger, and more accessible?

How will families survive the high cost of living?

How will young Nigerians find meaningful opportunities without believing that leaving their country is their only path to a better future?

How will institutions become stronger than individual politicians?

Those questions should follow every presidential candidate, governor, legislator, and political party.

Nigeria’s Greatest Issue Is Nigeria

The controversy surrounding President Tinubu’s U.S. records is legitimate news and a legitimate subject of public inquiry. Political opponents have the right to raise it. Journalists have the responsibility to investigate it. Lawyers have the right to pursue their clients’ interests within the law. Activists have the right to demand transparency. American courts have the responsibility to determine what records the law permits to be released and what information must remain protected. Nigerians, Americans, and others following the matter have the right to examine whatever facts ultimately become public and reach their own conclusions.

But I appeal to everyone involved—American officials, Nigerian leaders, political parties, lawyers, journalists, activists, commentators, and citizens—not to lose sight of the human beings living inside the country that has become the political battlefield.

Nigeria is not merely an election map. Nigeria is not merely APC, PDP, Labour Party, ADC, or any other political organization. Nigeria is not Tinubu, Atiku, Obi, or any other individual seeking power. Nigeria is more than arguments about what happened in Chicago more than thirty years ago.

Nigeria is its people.

It is the mother calculating whether the money in her hand can feed her children tonight.

It is the father searching for work while the cost of food, transportation, rent, electricity, medicine, and school expenses continues to rise.

It is the young graduate wondering whether years of education will ever lead to meaningful employment.

It is the patient who arrives at a hospital and discovers that the treatment needed is beyond the family’s financial reach.

It is the community living with the fear of kidnapping, banditry, terrorism, armed robbery, communal violence, or other forms of insecurity.

It is the police officer expected to protect the public while working within institutions that still require better training, equipment, professional support, accountability, and public confidence.

It is the ordinary citizen who enters a police station or courtroom hoping that justice will depend on the law rather than money, influence, political connections, ethnicity, religion, or social status.

These Nigerians cannot wait for another thirty years.

So, to our friends and institutions in the United States: follow your laws. Let your courts do their work. Release what the law requires to be released and protect what the law legitimately requires to remain protected. Nigeria should neither ask America to hide lawful information nor demand that America disclose information its laws properly protect.

To Nigeria’s politicians: debate the records if you wish. Challenge one another. Ask difficult questions about character, judgment, integrity, history, and fitness for office. That is democracy. But after you have finished discussing 1993, tell Nigerians what you intend to do about 2027 and beyond.

Tell the people how they will be safer.

Tell them how food will become affordable.

Tell them how hospitals will function.

Tell them how children will receive quality education.

Tell them how police institutions will become more professional and accountable.

Tell them how courts will deliver justice without unnecessary delay.

Tell young Nigerians why they should believe that their future can still be built in their own country.

To the lawyers: pursue the law vigorously, but remember that legal victory and national progress are not always the same thing.

To activists: continue demanding accountability, but let accountability be broad enough to include the conditions under which millions of Nigerians are presently living.

To journalists: investigate the past, certainly, but investigate the present with equal determination. Follow the old records, but also follow public money, hospitals, police stations, courts, schools, security failures, abandoned projects, unemployment, and the everyday consequences of government decisions.

And to Nigerians themselves: do not surrender another election entirely to the politics of personality.

Ask about Tinubu. Ask about Atiku. Ask about Obi. Ask about every candidate. Examine their histories. Question their records. Demand integrity.

But then ask something even larger:

What will you do for Nigeria?

A democracy cannot mature when every election becomes primarily a struggle among personalities, ethnic loyalties, religious identities, accusations, counteraccusations, and political camps. Democracy must eventually become a competition over institutions, measurable performance, public safety, economic security, justice, healthcare, education, and the dignity of ordinary people.

The weakness of Nigeria’s institutions does not carry a party membership card.

Insecurity does not ask whether its victim belongs to APC, PDP, Labour Party, ADC, or no party at all.

Hunger does not ask how someone voted.

A failing hospital does not recognize political slogans.

A frightened family does not experience kidnapping as a partisan issue.

And when justice fails an ordinary citizen, the pain is not theoretical. It is personal.

That is why Nigeria’s greatest issue is ultimately Nigeria itself.

The Tinubu records may tell Nigerians something important about the past. If additional lawful records are released, they should be read carefully, fairly, and without distortion. No wrongdoing should be excused because it is old, and no wrongdoing should be invented merely because an election is approaching.

But the 2027 election must also answer a much more immediate question: after decades of democracy, what are we doing about the condition of the Nigerian people today?

America can determine what its law permits Americans to disclose about events from the 1990s.

Nigeria must determine what it is prepared to do about the suffering of Nigerians in the present.

And history will judge our political generation not only by the secrets it uncovered from thirty years ago, but by whether it had the courage to confront the insecurity, institutional weakness, economic hardship, inadequate healthcare, failures of justice, and loss of public confidence happening before our eyes today.

That is the conversation America should hear.

That is the conversation Nigeria’s political class should hear.

That is the conversation lawyers, journalists, activists, and citizens should hear.

And above all, that is the conversation the Nigerian people deserve.

The United States can continue debating what should be released from files originating more than thirty years ago. Political opponents may continue raising the matter, as is their democratic right, and President Tinubu may continue responding through the legal and political processes available to him.

But the Nigerian people must not disappear from the conversation.

Nigeria must decide what kind of nation it wants to become over the next thirty years.

That—not merely what happened more than thirty years ago—should be one of the defining questions of the 2027 election.

Professor John Egbeazien Oshodi, PhD, born in Uromi, Edo State, Nigeria, is an American forensic/clinical psychologist, criminal justice specialist, behavioral scientist, educator, author, and international scholar whose work focuses on psychology, public policy, criminal justice, organizational development, and behavioral science.