The Presidency has launched a blistering response to reports emanating from Washington, D.C., linking former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to a lobbying campaign over historical United States records concerning President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, describing the development as a politically motivated attempt to manufacture a crisis ahead of the 2027 general elections.
In a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, Dr. Sunday Dare, the Presidency alleged that Atiku’s political camp had engaged a Washington-based lobbying firm on a $1.2 million, 12-month retainer to counter the Nigerian government’s narrative and generate international attention around issues it said had no bearing on the President’s current activities or administration.
Dare based the Presidency’s position on publicly available filings under the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), identifying the firm as Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C.
He dismissed recent statements attributed to Dr. Karl-Marx Edward Okeke-Von Batten, described in the statement as a commercial lobbyist, arguing that his pronouncements should not be mistaken for official positions of the United States government or the administration of President Donald Trump.
According to the Presidency, the controversy surrounding the lobbying activities represents an attempt to elevate political advocacy and speculation into the realm of intelligence reporting by invoking unnamed Western officials, alleged classified information and ongoing legal proceedings in the United States.
“Strip away the hyperbolic prose, the counterfeit urgency, and the grandiose invocations of classified espionage, and what remains is a textbook transactional hit job,” Dare said.
He challenged those behind the reports to produce the alleged “highly classified intelligence report”, identify their unnamed sources and provide documentary evidence to substantiate the claims being circulated.
The Presidency maintained that the reports had failed to present any intelligence document, identify any Western official involved or demonstrate an exchange concerning Nigeria’s national secrets or resources.
Dare argued that the FARA filings provided a more concrete basis for understanding the Washington campaign, alleging that the lobbying engagement was intended to generate political leverage for Atiku ahead of the 2027 elections.
He described the portrayal of the lobbyist as an authoritative geopolitical source as misleading, insisting that statements made by a commercial representative of a political interest could not legitimately be presented as the position of the United States government.
The statement also sought to separate President Tinubu’s current movements from the ongoing legal proceedings in the United States, stressing that the President’s European trip was a previously scheduled annual leave and had no connection with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) proceedings involving historical records.
Dare further argued that the U.S. court proceedings were longstanding and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s position was principally concerned with protecting investigative techniques and the identities or safety of confidential sources.
He contended that attempts to connect the proceedings with the President’s current political or official activities amounted to legal and political opportunism.
The Presidency also invoked comments attributed to Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Wole Afolabi, during a recent appearance on Channels Television, where he discussed ongoing FOIA requests concerning historical records held by U.S. federal agencies.
According to Dare, Afolabi’s explanation underscored that the withholding of portions of the records was grounded in established U.S. legal provisions protecting confidential investigative processes and did not, in itself, establish wrongdoing by President Tinubu.
The Presidential aide further argued that if President Tinubu had been criminally liable under U.S. law in connection with any historical investigations, American authorities would have had the opportunity to prosecute him at the relevant time.
He therefore urged American courts and law enforcement agencies to continue handling the matter strictly within the framework of U.S. law, without partisan interference.
Beyond the immediate controversy, however, the Presidency’s response widened into a broader indictment of the opposition’s emerging 2027 strategy.
Dare accused Atiku and the opposition of attempting to substitute foreign lobbying, sensational claims and historical controversies for a substantive political programme capable of addressing Nigeria’s economic and developmental challenges.
He argued that the opposition had yet to present a coherent alternative to the economic reforms of the Tinubu administration, particularly on difficult structural measures such as fuel subsidy removal and macroeconomic stabilisation.
According to him, the resort to what he described as “muckraking, emotional manipulation, and ethnic polarization” reflected a lack of convincing policy alternatives.
“When a political camp invests millions not into building grassroots infrastructure, agricultural masterplans, or industrial blueprints, but into hiring foreign mouthpieces to manufacture fictitious crises, they confirm their detachment from the everyday realities of ordinary Nigerians,” Dare said.
The Presidency positioned the controversy as part of a wider political struggle over how the 2027 elections would be fought, arguing that the eventual contest would be determined by the Nigerian electorate on the basis of domestic performance, policy choices and competing visions for the country.
Dare said the Tinubu administration remained focused on what he described as fiscal discipline, infrastructure development and institutional security reforms, insisting that these should form the basis for judging the government’s performance.
He maintained that political legitimacy could not be secured through foreign media campaigns or lobbying efforts but through direct engagement with Nigerians and demonstrable results on the ground.
“True democratic validation is earned through the ballot box and tangible service delivery to the citizens at home, not through manufactured headlines bought and paid for in foreign currency,” he said.
The statement ultimately cast the Washington controversy as less a question of new intelligence about Nigeria and more a developing battle over political narratives ahead of 2027.
While Atiku’s camp has continued to pursue issues surrounding historical U.S. records through legal and political channels, the Presidency has chosen to interpret the Washington activities as evidence of an opposition increasingly seeking validation outside Nigeria.
Dare’s message was therefore both a rebuttal of the allegations and a warning about the political battlefield ahead: that the 2027 presidential contest, in the Presidency’s view, should be fought primarily over Nigeria’s economy, security, infrastructure, governance and the competing records and promises of those seeking the nation’s mandate.
For the Tinubu administration, the challenge is to ensure that its record of reforms and delivery is sufficiently compelling to withstand the political attacks now gathering momentum. For the opposition, the emerging test is whether it can transform criticism of the administration into a credible, measurable and distinctly Nigerian alternative capable of persuading voters.
The Presidency insists that the final verdict will not be delivered in Washington, but by Nigerians at the ballot box.
