Greenspan filed a request for judicial notice on October 8, 2026, in support of his motion for permission to pursue limited discovery involving Tinubu, who intervened in the case in October 2023.

Afiling in a United States federal court has alleged that the Nigerian government pays $750,000 monthly to DCI Group AZ, LLC, an affiliate associated with US public affairs firm DCI Group, as a dispute involving President Bola Tinubu and a request for limited discovery continues.

The claim appears in a filing submitted by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan in his Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against US government agencies over records relating to an alleged federal investigation in the early 1990s involving Tinubu and Abiodun Agbele.

Greenspan filed a request for judicial notice on October 8, 2026, in support of his motion for permission to pursue limited discovery involving Tinubu, who intervened in the case in October 2023.

According to the filing's description of the relationship, DCI Group AZ receives $750,000 per month from the intervenor’s (Tinubu) government, a reference to the Nigerian government in the context of the litigation.

The filing also alleges that an account managed by the DCI affiliate published an attack post about Greenspan on August 5, 2026.

Greenspan is seeking documents relating to himself, the case and attacks on his website. The proposed discovery is intended to obtain information relevant to his claims.

However, the filing does not establish that the Nigerian government directed or financed the alleged online attack, or that the monthly payment was connected to it.

“Federal prosecutors have alleged that a Washington ‘public affairs’ and ‘lobbying’ firm engaged Israeli contractors whose operator(s) directed the hacking of electronic accounts belonging to targets of a project for the lobbying firm’s client, and that hacked data was then provided to the lobbying firm,” the filing said.

“The United States Department of Justice (filing openly in the United Kingdom and under seal in the United States), one defendant’s own counsel (again in the United Kingdom), and two national news organizations have all identified that firm as DCI Group.

“DCI Group AZ, LLC is paid $750,000 per month by Intervenor’s government, and on August 5, 2026 an account it manages published a post attacking Plaintiff in writing.”

Filing Seeks Judicial Notice of Public Records

The October 8 filing asks the court to take judicial notice of the existence and contents of public records attached as exhibits.

A separate one-page document submitted with the filing is labelled a proposed order. Although it contains language granting the request, the copy supplied has no date or judicial signature and cannot, on its own, establish that the judge granted the request.

The request for judicial notice is also distinct from Greenspan's underlying request for permission to pursue limited discovery.

Tinubu intervened in the lawsuit in October 2023, citing privacy interests in confidential tax records and federal law-enforcement documents.

In April 2025, US District Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration could not maintain their blanket refusals to confirm or deny whether responsive records existed. The judge upheld the CIA's refusal to confirm or deny the existence of records.

The ruling addressed the agencies' responses to Greenspan's information requests; it did not establish criminal wrongdoing by Tinubu or order the release of all the requested records.

The latest filing introduces further material in support of Greenspan's attempt to pursue limited discovery in the case.

In September, SaharaReporters reported that Greenspan, the plaintiff seeking the release of U.S. government records relating to President Tinubu, had asked a federal court in Washington for permission to put four questions to Tinubu over a series of denial-of-service attacks on his website, PlainSite.

In a reply filed on September 28 in Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (Case No. 1:23-cv-01816-BAH), Greenspan said Tinubu, who had intervened in the case, had not denied that he, his government or anyone acting on his behalf, including DCI Group AZ, L.L.C., was involved in the attacks.

“If that is so, the four requests for admission can be answered in minutes,” Greenspan wrote.

The filings, however, do not allege that Tinubu or DCI Group carried out the attacks, and they contain no evidence identifying who was responsible for them.

Greenspan Challenges Tinubu's Claim Of No Independent Verification

Tinubu's opposition to Greenspan's request, filed as ECF No. 109, argued that “there is no independent verification” of the alleged attacks.

Greenspan rejected that claim, pointing to a mitigation report attached to his earlier motion and generated on May 29, 2025 by PlainSite's internet service provider from its own mitigation system.

According to Greenspan's filing, the report recorded traffic of 941.9 megabits per second and 1.8 million packets per second at PlainSite's protected address. About half of the traffic was identified and dropped as hostile, while 110,700 source hosts were blocked.

Greenspan said Tinubu's opposition did not address the report, challenge its authenticity or provide contrary technical evidence.

Attacks Allegedly Resumed Around Court Filings

Greenspan also told the court that the attacks resumed after he filed his motion on September 9.

In a supplemental declaration made under penalty of perjury, he said the number of individual addresses blocked by PlainSite's firewall had fallen to about 69,000 by September 7, after the acute attacks stopped in late August.

He said the number began rising sharply around September 18, reached approximately 500,000 on September 23, and stood at 390,957 on the morning of September 24.

Greenspan noted that September 18 was the original deadline for the government's reply to his summary-judgment cross-motion before the deadline was extended to September 23, the same day Tinubu's side and the Justice Department filed their respective submissions.

His declaration also showed that the latest attacks were less disruptive than those recorded in August.

Unlike the August attacks, which he said drove the server's load average above 300, the September attacks “did not overwhelm the server,” with the load remaining below 25 because PlainSite's adaptive firewall automatically identified and blocked attacking networks.

Greenspan said the firewall dropped more than 200,000 packets per minute on September 23, while total web traffic exceeded 480,000 packets per minute.

He explained that some of the largest spikes on September 23 and 24 appeared in what the firewall classified as ordinary visitor traffic because attack traffic was counted there before its sources were identified and blocked. (Sahara Reporters, excluding headline)