The House of Representatives Minority Caucus has said President Bola Tinubu’s directive to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Osun State account has exposed deep contradictions in the Federal Government.
The lawmakers were reportedly to have expressed their reservations in a statement jointly signed by the Minority Leader, Hon. Fredrick Agbedi and the Caucus Spokesman, Hon. Afam Victor Ogene.
They accused Tinubu of issuing a “panicky, belated afterthought” directive to the EFCC.
The lawmakers said the President’s order for the EFCC to lift the court order freezing the accounts of Osun State was not made out of respect for the rule of law, but followed “massive public outcry.
The Caucus said the development shows “a government at war with itself” and points to what it called contradictory positions within the Tinubu administration on the validity of the EFCC’s actions.
The lawmakers noted that while EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, reportedly said on national television on Thursday that the freezing of Osun State’s accounts was carried out “without a valid court order,” the President later directed the anti-graft agency to return to court to “vacate the order.”
The Caucus challenged the seeming contradiction, “So which is it? “Was there a court order or not?”
Is the President not conscious of what his own appointees are saying and doing? Has the President given himself up to an army of sycophants who behave as if they are lords over the people? Or are they just trying to cover up an illegality that has already been exposed?
The opposition lawmakers also alleged that the senior presidential aides were the first to circulate and defend the initial statement from the EFCC justifying the freezing of the state’s accounts.
“It is therefore an insult for the President to play dumb. The statement added, “Nigerians are not fools.”
The Minority Caucus also contended that the latest development is part of a larger trend of intimidation of the Osun State Government by the Federal Government, led by the APC.
It alleged that the Federal Government had for months withheld statutory allocations due to Osun local governments in what it termed “economic strangulation’’ aimed at weakening governance at the grassroots ahead of the election.
The lawmakers also accused members of the APC and “imported thugs” of perpetrating constant violence in the state, adding that security agencies did not take decisive action.
They also mentioned the arrest and detention of the Secretary to the Osun State Government, Teslim Igbalaiye, and others, saying the action was a direct attack on the state’s institutions.
The Caucus equally condemned the conduct of the Osun State Commissioner of Police and described the statement made after the recent visit of the Inspector-General of Police as “partisan propaganda in uniform.”
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Some appointees of President Tinubu had continued to make “shocking, unpresidential and inciting statements” capable of damaging public confidence in the administration, the lawmakers said.
The mask is off. Now, Nigerians can see clearly that the APC has weaponized federal institutions against opposition states, a dress rehearsal of what is to come in the 2027 general elections.
“Mr. President is from Osun but the state cannot be a personal fiefdom, yes. He must let the people choose their ruler freely.
“The people of Osun deserve to be provided with the enabling environment to freely exercise their constitutional right to vote without fear, coercion or voter apathy engineered by state terror.
“Violence, intimidation, economic sabotage and the abuse of federal agencies have no place in a democracy,” the statement read.
