President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to approach the court and vacate the order freezing an account belonging to the Osun State Government, citing the timing of the action days to the state’s governorship election.
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In a statement he personally issued on Thursday, the President said his discomfort lay not with the Commission’s exercise of its statutory mandate but with when it chose to act.
Tinubu said he feels “deeply embarrassed not by the EFCC’s exercise of its mandate backed by a court order, but by the timing of the agency’s action.”
He then issued the directive: “Accordingly, I have directed the EFCC to immediately proceed to the court to vacate the order and discontinue whatever action it has instituted against the Osun State Government in this regard.”
The President explained that the intervention became necessary because of how actions of federal institutions are perceived by the public.
He said the directive to vacate the court order became important because “every action taken by an institution of State, especially at the Federal level, is always credited to me, as the President, even when I may not have had any prior knowledge of the action.”
Tinubu noted that since assuming office in May 2023, he has “consistently maintained that anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies must be allowed to discharge their statutory responsibilities independently, professionally, without fear or favour, or political interference.”
He added: “I have therefore deliberately refrained from directing or interfering in the operational activities of the EFCC or any other investigative or prosecutorial agency because I firmly believe that strong democratic institutions, operating within the confines of the law, are indispensable to democratic good governance and the rule of law.”
The President said that although he is yet to receive the full details of the matter, the “timing of the action of EFCC is inauspicious,” and that he was, on that account, compelled to intervene.
“Osun State is only a few days away from its gubernatorial election. Therefore, nothing ought to be done to give an impression that the EFCC or indeed any other agency of the federal government is being used to interfere with the election,” he said.
The presidential directive comes hours after the Commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Wilson Uwujaren, defended the action on Arise Television, describing it as a preventive measure taken to preserve the resources of the state.
“As we indicated in the statement released by the Commission, we took that step to preserve the account of the Osun State government,” Uwujaren had said, adding that the Commission observed suspicious activities on the account within one week, “especially beginning from August 2nd.”
He insisted the measure was narrow in scope. “That restriction order does not mean that all the accounts of Osun State have been frozen. No. It is just a targeted restriction on one account of Osun State government,” he said, adding that “what we have done is not a blanket freezing of the account; it’s just targeted freezing.”
On the legal foundation of the step, he said: “Section 34 of the EFCC Act and Section 7, Subsection 6 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2002, give us that authority to take that step,” explaining that “the restriction order can last within 72 hours before we can come with a court order.”
Responding to the suggestion that the Commission had a practice of acting against opposition-controlled states before elections, he said: “I didn’t say it’s a pattern for opposition governments. I said we have observed a pattern during the election cycle.”
He also disclosed that “there are about 18 other states where we have ongoing investigations,” while declining to name them, and maintained that the Osun inquiry “started way back in March.”
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