Kenneth Okonkwo has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s directive to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to return to court and seek the lifting of the order freezing Osun State Government’s account. He declared that the intervention has exposed deeper concerns about the independence of Nigeria’s federal institutions.
Okonkwo, a lawyer and political figure, said the directive might appear morally defensible because it came days before the Osun State governorship election, but the President had no legal basis to instruct the anti-graft agency on how to proceed with a matter already before a court, according to him.
He said the President’s admission that he had no prior knowledge of the EFCC’s action had also raised questions about how information is presented to him by officials within his administration.
According to Okonkwo, the revelation lends weight to recent concerns expressed by Cardinal John Onaiyekan that people around the President may be shielding him from the realities confronting Nigerians.
He said the President should instead take the concerns raised by the Catholic bishops seriously and scrutinise the advice reaching his office.
The controversy stems from the EFCC’s decision on August 5 to restrict withdrawals from an Osun State Government statutory allocation account while investigating alleged financial irregularities involving about N11bn in ecology funds, intervention funds, and Federation Account allocations.
The commission said it detected substantial transfers from government accounts into corporate accounts and imposed a post-no-debit restriction as a preventive measure. It maintained that the investigation was unrelated to the August 15 governorship election.
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The Osun Government disputed the action and prepared to challenge it in court, while lawyers differed over the legal authority and duration of the EFCC restriction.
President Tinubu subsequently directed the EFCC to approach the court that issued the freezing order and seek its vacation, saying the timing of the action could create the impression that a federal institution was being deployed to influence the election.
Okonkwo, however, contended that the episode had gone beyond the immediate dispute over Osun’s account.
He cited a pattern of presidential interventions involving federal institutions, including Tinubu’s assertion that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is neutral and his directive for the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi.
He said, “Tinubu has said INEC is neutral, ordered ICPC to investigate Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, and today ordered EFCC to unfreeze an account it froze.”
To Okonkwo, the sequence raises a fundamental question about whether institutions established to operate independently can exercise their mandates without political influence.
He described the President’s interventions as evidence that the independence of such agencies had been compromised. He alleged that they could be deployed against political opponents or restrained when their actions become politically inconvenient.
The former presidential candidate said the remedy, in his view, was sustained public scrutiny of executive power.
He said, “Eternal vigilance is the only way out of Tinubu’s interference in the actions of the ‘independent’ institutions.”
He further argued that the controversy had exposed a weakening of the rule of law under the present administration, and warned that the 2027 general elections could become a decisive test of public accountability and institutional autonomy.
“2027 should be the turning point for Nigeria,” Okonkwo concluded.
