A Washington-based lobbying firm hired by former Nigerian Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has begun circulating United States government records relating to President Bola Tinubu’s decades-old forfeiture case to members of President Donald Trump’s administration and key figures in the US Congress.
The firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C., said it had started providing Department of Justice (DOJ) documents concerning allegations that led to the forfeiture of funds linked to Mr Tinubu in the United States, distributing the records to senior congressional staff and lawmakers as part of its lobbying activities.
The development comes months after Atiku, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, engaged the Washington-based firm under a 12-month lobbying agreement reportedly worth $1.2 million.
According to the contract, the firm was retained to enhance Atiku’s reputation in the United States, facilitate engagements with the Trump administration and members of Congress, and counter what it described as lobbying efforts by the Nigerian government.
The documents being circulated relate to a long-standing US civil forfeiture case involving funds linked to Mr Tinubu in the 1990s. The Nigerian president has consistently maintained that he committed no criminal offence, while the forfeiture case has remained a recurring subject of political debate in Nigeria.
Neither the Nigerian presidency nor the White House had publicly responded to the latest development at the time of filing this report.
The move marks a fresh chapter in the international dimension of Nigeria’s political rivalry, with Atiku’s camp seeking to draw renewed attention to records that have featured prominently in domestic political discourse for years.
