By 247ureports.com
Von Batten-Montague-York, the Washington lobbying firm retained by presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, says it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the US State Department for the signed US-Nigeria mining memorandum of understanding and the records on how it was negotiated and executed, and says it intends to make whatever it receives public.
The firm announced the filing on X on Wednesday, saying Nigerians want to know what was signed in their names about their natural resources, and accusing President Bola Tinubu of failing to disclose the details of the agreement. It said the administration has signed other deals and borrowed billions of dollars while Nigerians remain in the dark about their terms. It added that it supports the US effort to secure access to critical minerals, but said Washington “must not become like China while trying to outcompete China.” The firm is an adviser to Atiku, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, and has been in a legal and public fight with the Tinubu administration, so its filing is political as well as legal.
The agreement was signed on September 23 at Nigeria’s Mission House in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, by Minister of Solid Minerals Development Dele Alake and US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, with Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu among those who witnessed it. It is described as a framework to attract American investment into Nigeria’s mineral sector and to build secure supply chains for critical minerals. Tinubu welcomed it as a gain of his Renewed Hope agenda, saying new processing plants are being established and investor interest in critical minerals is growing. The president was not the signatory.
The “$700 billion” in the headlines is the Nigerian government’s estimate of the value of the country’s mineral resources, and not an investment pledge or a figure in the agreement. Analysts note that public information on the framework is limited, with specific projects, financing commitments, mineral volumes and pricing not yet disclosed. Critics have also linked the signing to the deaths of 37 suspected illegal miners in custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Niger State days earlier, arguing that the government has not answered questions about the sector.
A FOIA request does not guarantee release. US agencies have a statutory 20 working days to respond but often take far longer, and can withhold material that concerns foreign relations or negotiating positions. The State Department has not said how it will handle the request, and 247ureports.com had not located a response from the Nigerian government to the firm’s demand.
