The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reported to a federal court in the United States that a former Chicago mobster, who had connections with President Bola Tinubu, has died.
This announcement was made on Wednesday during an ongoing freedom of information lawsuit at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington D.C.
According to Peoples Gazette, the U.S. authorities said in a court filing, “In light of receiving information that appears to confirm Mr Edwards’ death, DEA has begun its search for responsive records pertaining to him.”
Officials did not say when and how Edwards died, even though the revelation was framed in a way that suggested it might affect the timeline of future disclosure in the ongoing matter.
The platform claimed that the announcement followed the government’s efforts to conceal information relating to Tinubu’s involvement in an expansive drug business in Chicago.
Peoples Gazatte further stated that the government had previously released documents that showed Edwards, alongside Tinubu, was a prominent member of a drug mafia that operated in the northwestern U.S. in the 1980s. Investigators believed Tinubu was a leader of the syndicate at the time.
But documents relating to Tinubu are still being concealed, with the FBI submitting contradictory statements to the court.
Aaron Greenspan, a public transparency activist who filed the freedom of information suit in collaboration with Nigerian journalist, David Hundeyin, said the FBI has been downplaying the volume of records relating to the Nigerian president in its possession.
The FBI and other federal authorities “have not conducted an adequate search and are underrepresenting the number of pages responsive” to Greenspan’s request, he told the court in the joint-status report entered on December 5, 2023.
The FBI has released hundreds of pages of records relating to Mr Tinubu’s associates, including Mr Edwards and Adegboyega Mueez Akande, the entire file released so far was completely edited to remove Mr Tinubu’s name or clues as to his role.
Greenspan urged the court to order the FBI to release the records promptly and exhaustively with Tinubu’s name and role.
He cited the Chicago already-public case file that detailed how Tinubu forfeited over $460,000 in narcotics proceeds as evidence that the FBI’s files on Mr Tinubu can no longer be concealed.
