What $1.2 Million Buys in Washington

The contract opens with a warning.

Its cover, dated 20 February 2026, says the agreement is “not intended for public distribution,” then adds the exception that makes this article possible: “except as required under applicable United States law.”

That law is the Foreign Agents Registration Act, under which a registered agent of a foreign principal must file with the Justice Department “copies of each written agreement.” So the agreement between Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C. and Atiku Abubakar reached the FARA Registration Unit on 1 April 2026, and it has been public ever since.

Here it is, clause by clause.

First, a point that gets lost in the noise: hiring a registered lobbyist is legal. Nigerian businessmen do it, and so does Nigeria’s own government. Nothing in this filing suggests Atiku has broken any law. The real questions are what $1.2 million buys, and what the contract says he wants it to buy. Page numbers below refer to the 15-page filing, which you can download here.

Who signed, and when

The parties are Von Batten-Montague-York, “a Washington, D.C.-based professional limited liability company,” and “His Excellency Atiku Abubakar (‘Client’)” (p. 12).

• For the firm“Dr. Karl Von Batten, Managing Partner,” dated 3/9/2026 (p. 15).
• For the clientThe block reads “HIS EXCELLENCY ATIKU ABUBAKAR,” with a handwritten name on the “By” line, dated 03-10-2026 (p. 15). TheCable identified the signatory as Fabiyi Oladimeji, a Nigerian politician. The contract does not state his role.
• The start dateThe paperwork gives two. The agreement runs from the date of execution, and the Justice Department form gives the contract date as 03/09/2026 (pp. 4, 12). An amendment filed the same day says “effective February 20, 2026,” the date on the cover. That decides whether the term ends in February or March 2027.
• On fileReceived by the FARA Registration Unit on 1 April 2026, with a short-form registration for the firm’s founder. Documented

What he wants it to buy

Section I sets out the purpose in four lines (p. 12).

• Objective 1“To advance understanding within U.S. policymaking institutions of the Client’s leadership posture and policy vision.”
• Objective 2“To protect and strengthen the Client’s reputational standing in Washington.”
• Objective 3“To counterbalance incumbent-government lobbying narratives through lawful engagement.”
• Objective 4“To establish disciplined, structured, and compliant institutional relationships across relevant U.S. agencies and congressional offices.”

Objectives one, two and four are the standard language of any Washington reputation engagement.

Objective three is the one that matters.

It names an opponent. “Incumbent-government lobbying” means the Nigerian government’s own, and that is no hypothetical. In December 2025 DCI Group AZ, LLC, FARA registrant 6278, filed an agreement with a foreign principal listed as “Republic of Nigeria through Aster Legal,” effective 12 December 2025. It sets “a monthly retainer of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($750,000…)”, paid in six-month instalments of $4.5 million, the first recorded as received on 12 December (pp. 7, 10–11 of that filing). Its purpose includes “maintaining U.S support in countering West African jihadist groups and other destabilizing elements” (p. 10).

That contract is lawful too, and neither is unusual: TheCable noted in April that Matthew Tonlagha, vice-chairman of Tantita Security Services, had hired a Washington lobbying firm in December as well. But the scale is telling. Atiku’s fee for a whole year is less than two months of the government’s retainer.

What the firm promises to do

Section II sorts the services under five headings, from Strategic Advisory to “Narrative Architecture and Messaging” (pp. 12–13), and lists the ordinary tools of the trade: “Identification of priority Members and staff,” “Preparation of briefing materials and memoranda,” “Scheduling and facilitating meetings.” The firm’s description to the Justice Department is franker, promising “promotion, perception management, and public relations activities,” including “narrative positioning, and reputational advisory services” (p. 10).

Then comes the sentence that reads like the real prize.

“…the engagement may include preparatory strategic positioning for a potential meeting between His Excellency Atiku Abubakar and senior United States executive-branch leadership.”Section II of the agreement, p. 13

Read the words. May include. Preparatory. Potential. The contract does not promise a meeting; it promises to prepare for the possibility of one. No honest lobbyist could promise more, but it is worth remembering whenever the firm’s public statements suggest otherwise.

The agreement also says it follows a “Confidential Strategic Memorandum dated 13 January 2026” (p. 12). That memorandum is not in the filing.

The price, and the calendar

Section IV sets the fee at “One Million Two Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (US $1,200,000),” paid in six instalments counted from execution (pp. 13–14).

• Within 60 days · 25%US $300,000
• Day 90 · 8.33%US $100,000
• Day 120 · 25%US $300,000
• Day 180 · 8.33%US $100,000
• Day 240 · 25%US $300,000
• Day 300 · 8.33%US $100,000

The whole fee falls due within ten months, with approved expenses on top. Either side may end the deal on thirty days’ notice, but, in the text as filed, “Installations [sic] already due are non-refundable” (p. 14). Counted from the March signatures, the first four instalments, $800,000 in all, would have fallen due by early September.

Whether any of it has been paid is not on the public record.

At registration the firm answered “No” when asked whether it had received money from or for Atiku (p. 6). Its three later supplemental statements, the reports that list money received and political activity, were all stamped in August 2026, and all cover periods that ended before the contract existed; the latest runs to 31 December 2025. As of 10 September the Justice Department’s index lists no report covering 2026, although the filing promises that registrable contacts “will be reported in supplemental statements as required” (p. 8).

On 8 September Femi Fani-Kayode, the former aviation minister, said Atiku had paid the lobbyist $1.2 million. PRNigeria noted that his statement offered no documentary evidence of the payment.

The lobbyist

The founder’s registration names him as Dr. Karl-Marx Edward Okeke-von Batten III, born in 1976, a United States citizen and “Policy Advisor” (short form, p. 1). It also declares two $5,000 contributions to the “DC GOP” on 26 March 2026 (p. 2), exactly the information the form requests. His firm has been registered since June 2022, and the Justice Department’s index lists earlier clients in Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon and Burundi. Atiku is its first Nigerian client.

The scrutiny is personal. Within Nigeria reported on 10 September that his LinkedIn name is “Karl-Marx Edward Ikemefuna William George Okeke-Von Batten,” and that two of his professional profiles list different universities. Sunday Dare, the President’s special adviser on media and public communications, has written that he has also gone by “Ikemefuna Okeke.” Fani-Kayode said he had seen no publicly verifiable records of the academic claims. In February 2025, Within Nigeria reported, Rwanda’s embassy in Washington called a claim attributed to him “a flat-out lie.”

None of that is a finding. Within Nigeria said it had put questions to him, and it published no answer. We have not verified his qualifications, and nothing we read shows any of them to be false. What it does show is that the man carrying Atiku’s name around Washington has become a story himself, which is rarely what a reputation client pays for. Disputed

September, in six days

Then came the week that turned a filing into a spectacle. Each claim carries its status.

1. Tuesday 1 September

   The presidency goes after the contract

   Dare calls the firm’s releases “public relations propaganda sheets passed off as the view of the U.S. Government. They are not.”

   Documented
2. Wednesday 2 September

   A claimed $3 million offer

   The firm says Von Batten “received unsolicited offers of $3 million, along with an invitation to a confidential meeting in London, from a highly placed individual whom we have been informed is connected to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.” Vanguard reported that the allegation “could not be independently verified.” Fani-Kayode called it false.

   Alleged
3. 2–3 September

   A “White House presidential commission”

   The firm announces that President Trump has appointed Von Batten to an unnamed presidential commission: “Dr. Von Batten is deeply grateful to President Trump (The Chief) for this appointment and for the confidence placed in him.” Reports differ on whether this was on 2 or 3 September.

   Unresolved
4. Friday 4 September

   The commission is named

   Per Second News identifies the Commission on Presidential Scholars, which selects up to 161 graduating high-school students a year for the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program. It reports that the role is unpaid, and that administration officials said it carries no policymaking authority. Dare later adopted the same account.

   Documented
5. Saturday 5 September

   The post disappears

   “We deleted the post after the White House informed Dr. Von Batten that the ‘silly’ Nigerian government was repeatedly calling and ‘whining’ about the appointment,” the firm says, adding that the White House had confirmed the appointment. Von Batten says “it is an honor to even be thought of for any role associated with his Administration, paid or unpaid.” The account of the calls comes from the firm alone.

   Alleged
6. Sunday 6 September

   The post returns

   Late on Sunday the announcement is reposted. Politics Nigeria quoted a version that dates the appointment to 31 August.

   Unresolved

The Department of Education’s commission page names no commissioners, but it was last reviewed in September 2025, so it settles nothing either way. No White House statement appears in the reporting we reviewed. And even on the firm’s own account, the appointment is Von Batten’s, not Atiku’s. The contract never mentions it.

On 8 September the docket in Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, a Freedom of Information case in Washington over U.S. government records linked to President Tinubu, recorded an entry described as “Leave to File Amicus Brief.” The firm called its filings “officially accepted and docketed,” while acknowledging that the court may still grant or deny its motion. A docket entry is not a ruling, and the presidency stresses that no U.S. court has convicted Tinubu of any crime.

The two answers

Dare’s statement of 1 September correctly cites “a lucrative $1.2 million, 12-month retainer.” It then says the agreement’s scope is “to execute a targeted, partisan campaign designed to ‘counterbalance’ Nigerian government narratives and weaponize historical, legally resolved judicial archives for domestic political leverage.”

“Counterbalance” is in the contract. Judicial archives are not.

That is the presidency’s reading, not the document’s. So is Dare’s claim that Von Batten “must have conned a desperate Alhaji Abubakar Atiku.” The statement offers no evidence of what Atiku was told.

Atiku’s aide Phrank Shaibu replied on 2 September that the engagement had been filed voluntarily and disclosed from the outset, according to Legit.ng. (The FARA forms themselves describe that disclosure as mandatory.) Then he turned to the government’s contract.

“When you spend millions lobbying Washington, it is diplomacy. When Atiku spends $1.2 million over an entire year, it becomes desperation. What magnificent hypocrisy.”Phrank Shaibu, aide to Atiku Abubakar, 2 September 2026

On the arithmetic, he has a point. On the rest of the week Atiku’s camp has been quiet: in the reporting we reviewed, it made no on-record comment on the $3 million claim, the commission or the deleted post.

What $1.2 million actually buys

Set the week aside and the documents give a modest answer. The money buys memoranda, a list of offices to approach, help securing meetings, a messaging strategy, and preparation for a top-level meeting that may never happen. It also buys a registered agent who must, in time, report to the Justice Department what he did.

It does not buy a presidential appointment, the White House’s voice or a court’s verdict, whatever the week’s headlines suggested.

Objective three is a legitimate bet: that a candidate can out-argue a sitting government in Washington for a fraction of what it spends. The first hard evidence of how that bet is going will not come from X. It will come from a supplemental statement on a Justice Department server.

What the record does not show

• WrongdoingNothing in the filing or the reporting shows wrongdoing by Atiku Abubakar. The contract is legal and on file.
• Payments and contactsNo public filing yet shows whether any instalment has been paid, or whom the firm has approached for him.
• The appointmentNo White House confirmation or denial appears in the reporting we reviewed.
• The offer and the callsBoth rest on the firm’s word alone.
• The memorandumThe 13 January 2026 strategy memorandum behind the contract is not public.
• The credentialsQuestions about the lobbyist’s names and qualifications have not been answered in public.

In depthThe Atiku Money File: six matters on the public record Analysis“No Sacred Cows”: The $40 Million File Comes Back for Atiku

Sources

• U.S. Department of Justice, FARA Registration Unit, Exhibit AB, registrant 7130 (Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C.), foreign principal Atiku Abubakar, received 1 April 2026 · efile.fara.gov · download the contract
• U.S. Department of Justice, FARA Registration Unit, Short Form registration statement, Dr. Karl-Marx Edward Okeke-von Batten III, received 1 April 2026 · efile.fara.gov · download the registration
• U.S. Department of Justice, FARA Registration Unit, Amendment, registrant 7130, received 1 April 2026 · efile.fara.gov
• U.S. Department of Justice, FARA Registration Unit, Supplemental Statement, registrant 7130, for the six months ending 31 December 2025, stamped 24 August 2026 · efile.fara.gov
• U.S. Department of Justice, FARA eFile document index, registrant 7130, checked 10 September 2026 · efile.fara.gov
• U.S. Department of Justice, FARA Registration Unit, Exhibit AB, registrant 6278 (DCI Group AZ, LLC), foreign principal Republic of Nigeria through Aster Legal, received 18 December 2025 · efile.fara.gov
• TheCable, “Atiku hires US firm for $1.2m to ‘strengthen his reputation, counter FG lobbying’,” 5 April 2026 · thecable.ng · archived copy
• Sunday Dare, “Speculation as Classified Information: Atiku’s $1.2 million Lobbying gamble exposed,” P.M. News, 1 September 2026 · pmnewsnigeria.com
• Legit.ng, “Atiku Challenges Tinubu to Explain $460,000 US Forfeiture Record, $9m Lobbying Deal,” 2 September 2026 · legit.ng
• Vanguard via allAfrica, “We Were Offered $3m to Stop Campaign Against Tinubu – Atiku-Linked U.S. Lobbying Firm,” September 2026 · allafrica.com
• Legit.ng, “US President Donald Trump Gives Appointment to Lobbyist Linked to Atiku,” 3 September 2026 · legit.ng
• Per Second News, “Atiku’s Lobbyist Appointed to Unpaid Students’ Honours Panel, Not White House Policymaking Position,” 4 September 2026 · persecondnews.com
• Daily Trust, “Atiku’s lobbyist deletes post on purported Trump commission appointment,” 5 September 2026 · dailytrust.com
• Politics Nigeria, “US Firm Reveals Why It Deleted Trump Appointment Claim,” 5 September 2026 · politicsnigeria.com
• The Advocate, “Atiku’s lobbyist deletes Trump appointment claim as White House keeps mum,” 6 September 2026 · advocatengr.com
• Politics Nigeria, “Atiku’s US Lobbyist Makes U-Turn, Reposts Deleted Trump Appointment,” 7 September 2026 · politicsnigeria.com
• PRNigeria, “Fani-Kayode Tackles Von Batten over Tinubu Allegations, Questions Credentials, Motives,” 8 September 2026 · prnigeria.com
• Politics Nigeria, “US Court Accepts Fresh Evidence in Tinubu-Linked Drug Case,” 9 September 2026 · politicsnigeria.com
• Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, No. 1:23-cv-01816 (D.D.C.), docket · courtlistener.com
• Within Nigeria, “A Life Under Scrutiny: The man Atiku hired to shape his US image,” 10 September 2026 · withinnigeria.com
• U.S. Department of Education, “About the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program” · ed.gov
• U.S. Department of Education, “The Commission on Presidential Scholars,” page last reviewed 8 September 2025 · ed.gov

Hiring a registered lobbyist under the Foreign Agents Registration Act is lawful, and nothing in this article suggests that Atiku Abubakar has broken any law. The claims by Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C. about a $3 million offer, about calls from Nigerian officials to the White House and about a White House confirmation are the firm’s own and have not been independently verified. Statements by the presidency and by Atiku’s aides are theirs. Statuses are editorial labels, not legal findings.