The Osun State Government has taken legal action against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the freezing of its statutory allocation account, asking a Federal High Court in Abuja to void the restriction and award N2 billion in exemplary damages.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1762/2026 and filed on August 5, lists Governor Ademola Adeleke, the Osun State Attorney-General and the State Accountant-General as plaintiffs. The defendants are the EFCC, its Executive Chairman and First Bank of Nigeria Limited.
In the suit, the plaintiffs are asking the court to determine whether the EFCC has the legal authority to freeze, restrict or place a post-no-debit order on a state’s statutory allocation account without first obtaining a valid court order.
They are also seeking the court’s interpretation on whether the anti-graft agency’s directive to First Bank to freeze the account, without a prior or concurrent order from a court of competent jurisdiction, “does not constitute an egregious act of executive lawlessness, an unlawful resort to self-help, a flagrant abuse of statutory powers, an unlawful suppression of the constitutional powers and functions of the Plaintiffs, a threat to the constitutional and corporate existence of Osun State, a brazen and unlawful denial of the democratic rights and dividends of the people of Osun State, and a direct violation of the fundamental constitutional principles of due process, the rule of law, and the financial autonomy of a federating unit?”
According to the originating summons, the EFCC issued a letter dated August 5, 2026, with reference number CR:3000/EFCC/ABJ/HQ/PFS/TA/OSUN/VOL.17/666, instructing First Bank to place a restriction on the state’s statutory allocation account.
The Osun government argued that neither the EFCC nor the bank can lawfully deny it access to the account without an existing court order.
Among the reliefs sought, the plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the freezing, restriction or placement of a post-no-debit order on the account without judicial authorisation as unlawful, unconstitutional, null and void.
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The state also wants the court to declare that the EFCC must operate within the provisions of the Constitution and the EFCC Establishment Act and cannot freeze a state’s statutory allocation account through an administrative directive.
It further argued that First Bank has no legal basis to restrict access to the account solely on the strength of the EFCC’s August 5 letter “except in the manner stipulated by law.”
In addition to seeking an order lifting the restriction, the plaintiffs are asking for perpetual injunctions restraining the defendants from interfering with the account without judicial approval, as well as N2 billion in exemplary and aggravated damages for what they described as “unlawful interference with public funds.”
The legal action follows the EFCC’s announcement on Wednesday that it froze the state’s accounts over allegations of financial misconduct.
The commission said investigations into the Osun State Government began in March and that several officials, including the Accountant-General, had already been questioned. It also claimed investigators discovered large transfers from the accounts to various corporate entities from August 2 while the probe was ongoing.
However, Osun Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, rejected the allegations, describing them as an attempt to justify an unlawful action.
“The real reason the commission froze the state account on the order of Gboyega Oyetola was to stop the payment of palliatives which the state government promised the workers some months ago,” Alimi said.
The development came shortly before President Bola Tinubu directed the EFCC to vacate the freeze order.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the President said he was embarrassed by the development because actions taken by federal agencies are often attributed to him, even when he has no prior knowledge of them.
Tinubu acknowledged that the EFCC acted within its statutory powers by obtaining a court order but maintained that implementing the decision just days before the August 15 Osun governorship election created the wrong impression.
He consequently directed the anti-graft agency to immediately return to court to vacate the order freezing the state’s accounts and discontinue the action.
The dispute comes amid heightened political tension ahead of the governorship election, with Governor Adeleke seeking a second term on the platform of the Accord Party.
In recent weeks, both the Accord Party and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have traded accusations, with Adeleke’s camp alleging that federal agencies, including the police and the EFCC, were being used to intimidate its supporters. The APC has denied the allegation.