Adeleke directs Osun AG to withdraw suit against EFCC over account freeze
Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has directed the state Attorney-General to withdraw the lawsuit filed against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the freezing of the state government’s bank account.
Adeleke disclosed this in an interview with Channels Television on Monday, hours after he was declared the winner of the August 15 Osun governorship election.
The governor said he took the decision following President Bola Tinubu’s intervention in the matter.
“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?” Adeleke said.
The governor also addressed reports that some members of his administration had been invited by the EFCC for questioning.
He said he had instructed his lawyers to assist the affected officials.
“Well, we have been talking. I have been calling all my lawyers to go there,” he said.
Adeleke alleged that the EFCC invitations were politically motivated, although he acknowledged that some officials who honoured the invitations were released after questioning.
He also said he did not believe President Tinubu was aware of some of the actions taken by federal agencies.
“Most of these things, the president doesn’t know. The president has a lot of foreign work and jobs to do,” he said.
Adeleke further alleged that Gboyega Oyetola, former Osun governor and Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, was behind the EFCC action because of his relationship with the president.
“All these things is Oyetola because he is the cousin to the president. He is dropping the president’s name,” Adeleke alleged.
The governor added that Tinubu was not aware of the EFCC’s action, which he said prompted the president to intervene.
“I know that the president didn’t know about the EFCC one. That is why he had to call me and stop it,” he said.
Background
The Osun government had filed a suit against the EFCC over the freezing of its statutory allocation account.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1762/2026 and filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja on August 5, sought to nullify the EFCC’s directive and demanded N2 billion in exemplary damages against the commission.
The EFCC had said it froze the account as part of an investigation into alleged fraudulent handling of funds by the state government.
Tinubu later directed the EFCC to lift the freeze on the state government’s accounts.
The president said he was embarrassed by the development, noting that actions taken by federal institutions were often attributed to the presidency even when he had no prior knowledge of them.
