President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday held a series of meetings at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, including talks with the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, over the management and disposal of houses seized by the anti-graft agency across the country.
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Olukoyede was accompanied to the State House by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqha Rabe Darma, with discussions centred on ensuring transparency and accountability in the management and disposal of forfeited residential properties.
The State House media office disclosed the meeting in a statement and accompanying photographs released late Tuesday.
“Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Olanipekun Ola Olukoyede, and Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqha Rabe Darma, met with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the management and disposal of seized houses nationwide, under the rules of transparency and accountability at the State House, Abuja. Tuesday, August 18, 2026,” the statement said.
The meeting was the first publicly disclosed engagement between Tinubu and Olukoyede since the President intervened earlier this month over the EFCC’s freezing of accounts belonging to the Osun State Government shortly before the August 15 governorship election.
The EFCC had on August 5, 2026, obtained a court order freezing Osun State Government accounts as part of an investigation into the alleged fraudulent handling of Ecology Funds, Intervention Funds and Federation Account Allocation Committee funds amounting to about N11 billion.
The commission had said it had been investigating the state government since March over the alleged transactions.
The Osun State Government challenged the action at the Federal High Court in Abuja, filing a suit seeking to nullify the freezing order and demanding N2 billion in exemplary damages.
The state government described the EFCC investigation as an unproven “witch-hunt” and challenged the legality of the restriction placed on its accounts.
Two days after the accounts were frozen, Tinubu personally directed the EFCC to return to court and take steps to vacate the order.
The President said his concern was not with the commission carrying out its statutory responsibilities pursuant to a court order, but with the timing of the action coming just days before the governorship election.
Tinubu said he was “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,” which came about 10 days before the August 15 poll.
He maintained that although he had deliberately refrained from interfering with the operational activities of the anti-graft agency, he could not allow any federal institution to create the impression that it was being deployed to influence an electoral contest.
Governor Ademola Adeleke subsequently won re-election in the August 15 governorship poll.
Following his victory, Adeleke disclosed that he had directed the Osun State Attorney-General to withdraw the suit filed against the EFCC, crediting Tinubu’s intervention with resolving the controversy.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics shortly after his victory was announced, Adeleke said there was no longer any reason to continue with the litigation.
“I’m putting them behind. What else do I want? I have instructed my Attorney General to drop it. Mr President has done well. He called me. What more do I want?” the governor said.
Tuesday’s meeting between Tinubu and the EFCC Chairman therefore came three days after Adeleke’s re-election and following the governor’s decision to discontinue the case against the commission.
Beyond the meeting with Olukoyede and the Housing Minister, the President also received several senior political and government figures at the Villa on Tuesday.
Among them was Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who held a closed-door meeting with Tinubu.
Akpabio reportedly arrived at the Presidential Villa at about 6:12 p.m., at a time the President was said to be meeting with the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris.
Less than an hour later, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy and former Osun State Governor, Gboyega Oyetola, arrived at the Villa.
Oyetola’s visit came just days after the All Progressives Congress lost the Osun governorship election to Adeleke, who contested on the platform of the Accord Party.
The APC candidate in the election was Bola Oyebamiji.
Also at the Villa was the member representing Doguwa/Tudun Wada Federal Constituency of Kano State in the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado Doguwa.
The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, was also seen at the Presidential Villa during the period.
The engagements involving Akpabio, Oyetola, Idris, Doguwa and Alake were held behind closed doors, and the officials did not speak with journalists on the agenda or outcome of their meetings with the President.
Their visits came against the backdrop of the conclusion of the Osun governorship election and on the eve of the commencement of official campaigns for the 2027 general elections.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had fixed August 19, 2026, for the commencement of campaigns ahead of the 2027 elections.
The meetings also preceded a scheduled Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday.
While the State House specifically disclosed that Tinubu’s meeting with Olukoyede and Darma focused on the transparent management and disposal of houses seized by the EFCC nationwide, no official explanation was immediately provided for the separate closed-door engagements with Akpabio, Oyetola, Idris, Doguwa and Alake.
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