President Bola Tinubu has directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately return to court and vacate the order freezing the Osun State government accounts.
In a statement, the President said he was not embarrassed by the EFCC's anti-corruption mandate, nor by the court order itself. What concerned him, he said, was the timing of the action, which came just days before the Osun governorship election.
Tinubu reiterated his commitment to allowing anti-corruption agencies to operate independently, without political interference.
The President also stressed that he had no prior knowledge of the EFCC's decision to seek the court order that froze the state's accounts.
However, he noted that every action of a federal institution is ultimately linked to the presidency. That, he said, made it necessary for him to intervene in the interest of public confidence.
The directive follows the freezing of the Osun State government accounts, a measure the state government had already moved to challenge before the courts. With the governorship election only days away, the President's intervention places the dispute over the frozen accounts at the centre of the political contest in the state.