A Washington-based lobbyist working for Nigeria’s former vice-president Atiku Abubakar has filed a $26 million (£19.4 million) federal defamation lawsuit in the United States against the New York-based news website Sahara Reporters and one of its writers.
Dr Karl Von Batten, founder of Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C., said he personally lodged the 19-page complaint at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday morning. The case is listed as Von Batten v. Sahara Reporters Media Group, Inc., et al., Case No. 1:26-cv-03209. The co-defendant is named as Ademola Wasiu Olalekan Bello.
In a statement on X, Von Batten said the complaint followed a 16-hour drafting session and was “supported by extensive documentary evidence”. He is proceeding pro se at this stage, with an independent legal team expected to take over as the case develops.
“The false and defamatory allegations against me, which we believe are part of a broader effort to discredit me and interfere with our work, will now be tested in federal court, before a federal judge,” he wrote. “I am looking forward to discovery.”
The firm argues that recent publications about Von Batten’s identity, background and credentials form part of a coordinated campaign to stop its efforts to secure the public release of FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration records linked to historical drug-trafficking allegations involving Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu. It has also issued a preservation notice demanding that Sahara Reporters and Bello retain all related documents, communications and source material.
Von Batten-Montague-York is registered under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act and is retained by Atiku Abubakar on a reported $1.2 million, 12-month contract. One of its stated aims is to counter Nigerian government narratives in Washington and to brief US officials on records from a 1993 civil forfeiture case in Chicago, in which US authorities alleged that proceeds connected to a heroin-trafficking investigation were deposited in accounts linked to Tinubu. Tinubu has not been convicted of a drug offence. The Nigerian Presidency has repeatedly described the related US litigation as a civil Freedom of Information Act dispute over redacted historical files, not a criminal prosecution.
Questions about Von Batten’s own biography have circulated widely in Nigerian media in recent weeks. Public records and professional profiles list him under several names, including Karl-Marx Edward Okeke-Von Batten and Karl-Marx Edward Ikemefuna William George Okeke-Von Batten. Critics have asked how a consultant of Nigerian origin came to use the Von Batten surname, whether academic claims associated with him can be independently verified, and how he presents himself in Washington. The firm has dismissed some of those claims as a smear intended to distract from the Tinubu records.
Sahara Reporters, founded by the activist and publisher Omoyele Sowore, has carried multiple reports on the lobbying contract, the FOIA battle and Von Batten’s activities. It has not issued an immediate public response to the filing. The outlet has previously defeated or seen dismissed other defamation actions in US and Nigerian courts.
Von Batten said the firm would consider further suits against anyone whom discovery showed had planned, financed or taken part in what it calls a smear campaign. He framed the action as an end to “online theatre” by the Nigerian Presidency and an attempt to shift the dispute from social media into a courtroom where evidence can be tested.
The filing lands in an already charged pre-2027 election atmosphere, with both the Tinubu government and Atiku’s camp spending heavily on Washington lobbying and public argument over decades-old American legal files. Whether a federal judge will treat the disputed publications as actionable defamation, protected political speech or something in between will now be a matter for the District of Columbia court.
By A. Ikechukwu
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