Sensitive FBI (federal bureau of investigation) documents pertaining to President Bola Tinubu have been withheld by a US court.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has declared that only records that do not specifically name the president will be made public.

Investigative journalist David Hundeyin filed the lawsuit alongside Aaron Greenspan.

The plaintiffs said that the FBI records might provide information on the president’s alleged criminal activity and that the public has a right to know about his background.

Previously, the FBI agreed to release 2,500 documents relating to President Tinubu.

Beginning in October, the documents were to be released in batches of 500 per month.

However, the court’s decision means that only a subset of these documents will be made public.

On Tuesday, the US court denied Tinubu’s emergency request for the release of confidential information.

Beryl Howell, the district judge who denied the request, stated that Greenspan did not meet the requirements for granting such a request.

“Plaintiff has failed even to attempt to argue how his request may overcome those exemptions and achieve a likelihood of success on the merits,” Howell said.

“This failure to address this important factor in his Emergency Motion weighs strongly in favour of denying his motion.

“Plaintiff falls far short of satisfying this standard. He has not supplied the court with any indication of a concrete, actual threat that he will suffer in the absence of an injunction.

“While his Emergency Motion states that a Nigerian Supreme Court hearing is scheduled to occur in the coming days, the plaintiff cites no injury he will suffer that is in any way traceable to the relief requested in this motion.”

The judge went on to say that the request “may be of a highly sensitive and private nature” and pointed out that “the subject of those documents, Bola A. Tinubu, has had no opportunity to protect his privacy interests in any such records”.

Below are pictures of the court order: