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A United States lobbying firm linked to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has renewed its campaign for the release of records relating to President Bola Tinubu’s decades-old US case, while announcing plans to engage anti-drug organisations and victims of heroin abuse in the United States.

The firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, made the announcement in a statement posted on its official X account on Saturday, alleging that US law enforcement agencies under former President Joe Biden refused to release documents relating to Tinubu despite multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.

According to the firm, the requests were filed by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

It identified the requests as FOIA numbers 1588244-000, 1593615-000, 22-00892-F, 24-00201-F and EOUSA-2023-002028.

The lobbying firm claimed the refusal by the agencies prompted US District Judge Beryl Howell to order the release of the records in 2025, adding that the documents have yet to be made public.

‘The FBI, the Justice Department, and the DEA under President Joe Biden refused FOIA requests to release records concerning Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s alleged heroin trafficking from Nigeria to Chicago.

‘The FOIA requests were made by Aaron Greenspan, an American transparency activist. The refusal and stonewalling by the Biden Administration led to US District Judge Beryl Howell ordering the Biden Administration in 2025 to release the files. Yet, no files have been released. This is going to change,’ the statement said.

It added that the alleged delay in releasing the documents ‘is going to change.’

The firm also announced plans to meet with anti-drug organisations, religious leaders and victims of heroin abuse in the US.

‘As President Donald Trump has rightfully shown, US agencies must never protect foreign leaders accused of having links to drugs smuggled into the United States.

‘Next week, we will be engaging with anti-drug organisations, religious leaders, and victims of heroin abuse and deaths regarding President Tinubu’s alleged link to heroin trafficking in Chicago,’ it stated.

The renewed demand follows a series of exchanges between the former vice president and the Presidency over Tinubu’s US legal records.

Earlier this week, Atiku, through his spokesman, Phrank Shaibu, faulted the Presidency’s response to petitions reportedly sent by his US lobbying team to President Donald Trump and the US State Department seeking further scrutiny of Tinubu’s 1993 civil forfeiture case.

He argued that the government’s defence of the President had instead reignited public interest in the decades-old matter.

The Presidency rejected the petitions, insisting that US authorities had confirmed there were no pending criminal cases against Tinubu. Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga also defended the President and accused Atiku of corruption during his time as vice president.

Tinubu’s 1993 civil forfeiture case, which involved funds connected to bank accounts linked to him, has repeatedly resurfaced in Nigeria’s political discourse. While the Presidency maintains that the matter ended without a criminal conviction, opposition figures have continued to press for the release of additional US records, making the issue a fresh point of political contention ahead of the 2027 general election.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said the Tinubu administration has finally adopted a policy direction he first advocated more than two decades ago, after nearly three years of what he described as ‘poor planning and misplaced priorities’ in the power sector.

Atiku, in a statement issued on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the recent admission by the Minister of Power that Nigeria can no longer depend solely on large, centralised power plants amounts to a belated endorsement of the decentralised electricity model he championed since 2005.

‘It should not take a government three years in office to discover what was obvious more than two decades ago,’ Atiku said.

He criticised the administration for increasing electricity tariffs before implementing structural reforms.

‘A government that thinks before it acts would have fixed the system before asking citizens to pay more. Unfortunately, this administration has done the exact opposite-raising tariffs first and only now beginning to think about the reforms required to justify those increases.’

Atiku recalled that during his tenure as Vice President, he consistently urged President Olusegun Obasanjo to decentralise electricity generation by harnessing hydro, solar, gas and other viable sources.

He disclosed that when President Obasanjo set up the Power Sector Reform Committee based mainly on gas-fired generation, he was appointed Chairman but declined to preside.

‘This has been my position for over two decades. When President Obasanjo established the Power Sector Reform Committee based primarily on gas-fired generation, I was appointed Chairman. However, because I fundamentally disagreed with the policy direction, I declined to preside over the committee. I believed then, as I do now, that Nigeria’s electricity future lay in a diversified and decentralised energy mix-not an overdependence on a single source.

‘Unfortunately, billions of dollars contributed by the Federal Government, states and local governments were committed to that approach, yet the expected results never materialised. Contracts were awarded, huge sums were paid upfront, but much of the promised work was never done. The National Assembly subsequently investigated the power sector reforms and held President Obasanjo accountable for the outcome. I was never invited by the investigators because I had declined to chair the committee despite being formally appointed.’

Atiku said he restated the position in a 2022 interview with ARISE News and made it a central pillar of his presidential campaigns from 2007 through 2023.

‘For more than two decades, I have consistently argued that Nigeria’s overdependence on a centralised generation system was economically unsustainable and technically inefficient. Today, the Tinubu administration is merely acknowledging what I proposed years ago.’

The former Vice President lamented that instead of coherent reforms, the current government has spent almost three years ‘experimenting with the livelihoods of Nigerians.’

‘The result has been higher electricity tariffs, struggling businesses, collapsing manufacturers and households paying more for less power.

‘The greatest tragedy is not that this government has finally embraced the right idea. The tragedy is that it took three years of policy drift, higher tariffs and prolonged darkness to discover what could have transformed Nigeria’s power sector more than two decades ago.’

Atiku said an ADC administration under his leadership would pursue a diversified and decentralised electricity generation strategy driven by hydro, gas, solar and other viable sources.

He added that the plan would also include expanding transmission infrastructure, strengthening distribution networks, and encouraging private sector participation to guarantee stable and affordable electricity.

‘Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of ideas. It suffers from a shortage of leaders willing to act on the right ideas at the right time. It is never too late to embrace the right policy, but Nigerians should never have had to pay the price for a government that spent three years learning what should have guided its actions from day one.’

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the Tinubu administration over what he described as ‘unprecedented domestic borrowing’ despite a significant windfall from high international crude oil prices.

In a statement issued on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku described the government’s economic management as ‘contradictory, opaque, and bereft of fiscal discipline.’

The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) noted that the Federal Government has already raised about ?5 trillion from the domestic bond market in the first half of 2026 – almost 80 per cent of the total amount borrowed during the same period in 2025.

‘Such aggressive borrowing would only be understandable if government revenues had collapsed. The exact opposite is the case,’ Atiku said.

He pointed out that while the 2026 Appropriation Act benchmarked crude oil at $64.84 per barrel, Brent crude has averaged around $92 per barrel between March 1 and July 14.

Nigerian crude typically trades at a premium above Brent.

‘This naturally raises two unavoidable questions,’ Atiku said.

‘First, why is a government enjoying such an extraordinary oil windfall borrowing at almost twice last year’s pace as though the nation were in financial distress? Second, where is the money?’

According to him, the $27.15 difference between the benchmark and market price, at an average production of 1.5 million barrels per day, translates to an estimated $42.7 million in additional revenue daily.

‘Over the 135-day period, that amounts to approximately $5.76 billion, or about ?7.98 trillion.

‘Nigerians deserve a full accounting of this windfall. Where has the money gone? Why is there no transparent disclosure of the proceeds from excess crude sales? Why is government borrowing heavily when oil revenues are significantly above budget projections?’ he asked.

Atiku recalled that previous administrations maintained clear mechanisms for warehousing excess crude earnings through the Sovereign Wealth Fund and other fiscal buffers.

‘Today, Nigerians have been left completely in the dark. A government that cannot explain what it has done with an estimated ?7.98 trillion in additional oil receipts has no moral authority to continue plunging the country deeper into debt,’ he stated.

He further lamented that despite the oil windfall and fuel subsidy removal, millions of Nigerians face worsening hardship.

Citing recent UN findings, he said about 80 per cent of Nigerians cannot afford a decent meal daily, while infrastructure continues to deteriorate despite promises that subsidy savings would go to roads, healthcare, education and other sectors.

‘It is increasingly evident that this administration lacks the competence, discipline, and transparency required to manage the nation’s resources. Rather than allowing Nigerians to benefit from favourable global oil prices, it has chosen the path of endless borrowing, mounting debt, and deepening poverty.’

Atiku pledged that an ADC administration under his leadership would account transparently for every kobo earned above the budget oil benchmark under a rules-based fiscal framework.

He added that the administration would deploy excess revenues to reduce debt, strengthen fiscal buffers, and invest in infrastructure, education, healthcare, agriculture and job-creating sectors.

Atiku said an ADC administration would restore transparency by publishing regular reports on excess crude earnings and subjecting public finances to the highest standards of accountability.

He added that it would cut the cost of governance and ensure borrowing is only for productive investments, ‘not to finance consumption or conceal fiscal irresponsibility.’

‘Nigerians deserve answers. They deserve accountability. Above all, they deserve a government that manages national wealth in the public interest, not one that presides over unprecedented opacity while asking future generations to repay debts incurred in the midst of plenty,’ he said.

Long before the lights come on in the Big Brother Naija house and the housemates walk in, a small army of Nigerian artisans, engineers, and designers has already spent the better part of a year bringing one of Africa’s biggest reality television productions to life. By the time viewers see the Big Brother Naija house on launch night, months of planning, engineering, and construction have culminated in a purpose-built environment designed to support a multi-week show.

This season’s process began in November 2025, nearly nine months before its July 26th, 2026, premiere. To understand the BBNaija house, you have to look past the finished set and into the timeline behind it. The process begins with concept development and design, followed by months of procurement, sourcing, and planning before construction crews move in. From bare structure to camera-ready set, the physical transformation takes just two months.

The result is a custom BBNaija house in Lagos equipped with 52 robotic pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras, seven handheld cameras, 59 microphones, 36 antenna blades, and 19 speakers, all working together to capture every conversation and movement around the clock. Constructed adjacent to the live television studio, which houses seven hand-held cameras, the space is flexible enough to accommodate over 20 housemates for the period while seamlessly morphing to capture every moment of the show.

What’s easy to miss watching from home is how much the house itself changes year to year. The house that we have now is fundamentally different from the house that we’ve had in the last three years. A major turning point came in 2024, when the production team moved the staircase into the center of the living room and relocated the bedrooms upstairs in a shift that reshaped how housemates move through and are seen within the space.

It’s a level of design ambition that goes well beyond aesthetics. Every reconfiguration is built around camera coverage, sightlines, and how housemates naturally gather and interact, the architectural equivalent of a director blocking a scene, except the ‘actors’ never leave the set.

Perhaps most remarkable is that the entire project is delivered locally. From civil engineering and electrical works to interior decoration and finishing, every aspect of the house is executed in Nigeria using local expertise. That commitment supports more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs each season, spanning carpenters, electricians, decorators, civil engineers and a wide range of specialist trades.

The impact extends well beyond construction. Once the house is handed over, hundreds more professionals take over-from production crews and camera operators to the ninjas who facilitate tasks, master control room (MCR) teams, housekeeping staff, caterers and technical support personnel who keep the production running around the clock.

For a franchise often defined by its drama, rivalries, and ratings, the Big Brother Naija house tells another story entirely. Before the cameras start rolling each season, a full-scale, homegrown production ecosystem dismantles, redesigns, and rebuilds the house from the ground up, ready for a new cast of housemates to make it their own.