BREAKING: Tinubu orders EFCC to vacate order freezing Osun state account

President Bola Tinubu has ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to vacate the freezing of the Osun State Government’s bank accounts, citing embarrassment over the timing of the development.

This was disclosed in a statement issued by the President and posted by his official spokesperson, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, on Thursday.

The development comes less than 24 hours after the Commission stated that its decision to freeze the accounts followed an investigation into the Osun State Government, which began in March 2026, over the alleged fraudulent handling of Ecology Funds, Intervention Funds, and Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) allocations, amounting to N11 billion.

What the President is saying

The President stated that it had come to his notice that the EFCC obtained a court order on August 5, 2026, freezing the accounts of the Osun State Government.

• “I must state that I feel 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.
• “This is because every action taken by an institution of the 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,” he stated.

He directed the EFCC to immediately proceed to court to vacate the order and discontinue whatever action it has instituted against the Osun State Government in this regard.

According to him, since assuming office, he has consistently maintained that anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies must be allowed to discharge their statutory responsibilities independently, professionally, and without fear, favour, or political interference.

• The President stated that while he was yet to be fully apprised of the facts that informed the EFCC’s decision to approach the court and obtain the order freezing the Osun State Government’s accounts, “the timing of the EFCC’s action is inauspicious, and therefore I feel compelled to intervene.”

Tinubu added that Osun State is only a few days away from its governorship election and, as such, nothing should be done to create the impression that the EFCC or any other federal government agency is being used to interfere with the election.

He maintained that he was duty-bound to issue the directive in consonance with the overriding public interest of preserving public confidence in the integrity, credibility, and fairness of Nigeria’s democratic process.

Backstory

On Wednesday, the EFCC broke its silence on why it froze the bank accounts of the Osun State Government.

According to the Commission, its ongoing investigation into the state government would not have warranted the placement of a Post No Debit (PND) order on the accounts but for the alleged precipitate and unwarranted movement of funds from the accounts into different suspicious accounts since August 2, 2026.

• “The Commission noticed huge transfers of funds into different corporate entities and had to swiftly halt the trend by freezing the accounts from which such huge sums were being moved,” the EFCC stated.

However, the Osun State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Oluwole Jimi-Bada, on Wednesday denied the allegation of financial misappropriation and threatened to sue the Commission.

What you should know

Amid the development, the umbrella body of Nigerian lawyers, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), reacted to the EFCC’s decision to freeze the Osun State Government’s accounts.

• According to the NBA, “No government agency or any person has the right or the power to restrict withdrawals from the account of any state because, first of all, the order has the effect of grounding the activities of a government.”

The NBA President, Afam Osigwe, SAN, said that if the EFCC knows that a particular account is being used for fraudulent purposes, it may obtain a court order to freeze that specific account, but it cannot obtain a blanket order freezing the accounts of an entire state.