Adeleke Drops EFCC Suit After Tinubu’s Intervention, Directs Osun AG To Withdraw Case

Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has directed the stateAttorney-General to withdraw the legal action filed against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the freezing of the state government’s bank account.

Adeleke disclosed the decision in an interview with Channels Television yesterday, shortly after being declared the winner of the August 15 governorship election.

The governor said President Bola Tinubu’s intervention had prompted him to abandon the case, which was instituted after the anti-graft agency froze the state’s statutory allocation account.

Explaining his decision, Adeleke said he had instructed the Attorney-General to discontinue the matter because he considered the President’s intervention sufficient to resolve the dispute.

“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 also addressed reports that some members of his administration had been invited by the EFCC for questioning.

He said he had directed members of his legal team to assist the affected officials in dealing with the agency.

“Well, we have been talking. I have been calling all my lawyers to go there.”

Adeleke alleged that the invitations were politically motivated but acknowledged that some of the officials who honoured the EFCC’s invitations were released after questioning.

He further said he did not believe President Tinubu was aware of some of the actions being attributed to federal agencies.

“Most of these things, the president doesn’t know. The president has a lot of foreign work and jobs to do.”

The governor also accused former Osun State Governor and current Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola, of influencing the EFCC action, alleging that Oyetola had used his relationship with Tinubu in the matter.

“All these things is Oyetola because he is the cousin to the president. He is dropping the president’s name,” Adeleke said.

He added:

“I know that the president didn’t know about the EFCC one. That is why he had to call me and stop it.”

How The Dispute Began

The Osun State Government had approached the Federal High Court in Abuja to challenge the EFCC’s decision to freeze its statutory allocation account.

The suit, filed on August 5 and numbered FHC/ABJ/CS/1762/2026, sought an order setting aside the freeze and demanded N2 billion in exemplary damages against the commission.

The EFCC had maintained that the account was frozen as part of an investigation into alleged financial irregularities involving the state government.

The dispute was subsequently defused after President Tinubu directed the EFCC to lift the restriction on the account.

Tinubu had said he was embarrassed that actions taken by federal institutions were being associated with his administration even when he had no prior knowledge of them.