Dignity in Defeat? US Firm Tells Tinubu to Accept Trump Rejection
Washington / Abuja — September 1, 2026 — A Republican-linked Washington lobbying firm hired by former Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar has declared victory in what it describes as the collapse of President Bola Tinubu’s reported multimillion-dollar effort to court US President Donald Trump.
In a sharply worded statement posted on X on Tuesday, Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C. said Nigerian officials, including Special Adviser on Media and Public Communications Dr. Sunday Dare, were “deeply unhappy” with the firm and its founder, Dr. Karl Von Batten.
The firm claimed credit for “destroying” a reported $9 million lobbying campaign aimed at winning Trump’s support.
“President Tinubu’s planned UN meeting with President Trump is dead,” the firm wrote. “The effort to secure President Trump’s support for Tinubu has failed. The pushed White House meeting is not going to happen.
The effort to secure U.S. support for Tinubu’s presidential campaign has failed.”
It added a mocking note: “We understand their frustration, and we would like to play the world’s smallest violin for their sorrows,” before advising the Nigerian government to “show some dignity when you lose.”
The Background Battle in Washington
The claim lands amid an intensifying influence war in the US capital ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 elections. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) records show the Nigerian government, through a Kaduna-based firm acting for the Office of the National Security Adviser, retained the DCI Group in December 2025 under a $9 million contract.
The stated purpose was government relations and strategic communications focused on protecting Christian communities and maintaining US support against West African jihadist groups.
Separately, Atiku Abubakar signed a 12-month, $1.2 million contract with Von Batten-Montague-York in March 2026.
The firm’s mandate includes strengthening Atiku’s reputation in Washington, facilitating meetings with US officials, and “counterbalancing” Nigerian government lobbying narratives.
Von Batten’s team has been highly active. In July it announced it was circulating more than 60 pages of US Department of Justice documents related to decades-old civil forfeiture proceedings and allegations involving Tinubu from the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The firm has framed the material as relevant for US oversight given Nigeria’s strategic importance and reports that Tinubu sought a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Tinubu is scheduled to address the 81st UN General Assembly in September. Nigerian officials earlier indicated he would sit close to Trump in the General Assembly hall, raising the possibility of a bilateral encounter. No official confirmation of a formal meeting has been issued by either government.
Pushback from Abuja
The Presidency has repeatedly dismissed the firm’s activities as politically motivated. In a statement on Tuesday, Sunday Dare described the lobbying effort as part of an attempt to manufacture crisis ahead of the 2027 elections.
He stressed that statements from the firm do not represent the position of the US government or President Trump, and called the circulating material “public relations propaganda.”
Dare and other Nigerian officials have previously accused Atiku of “outsourcing political warfare” to Washington and questioned the firm’s portrayal of historical records as current intelligence.
What Remains Unclear
Independent verification of the firm’s central claim — that any planned private meeting between Tinubu and Trump has been cancelled — has not come from the White House or the US State Department.
The $9 million DCI Group contract was publicly framed around security and religious freedom issues rather than an explicit endorsement of Tinubu’s re-election bid.
The episode underscores how Nigeria’s domestic political contest is increasingly being fought on American soil, with rival camps spending heavily on lobbyists, document dumps, and public messaging in the run-up to 2027.
Whether the firm’s declaration proves accurate will become clearer when world leaders gather in New York later this month.
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