The Osun issue

THE drama in Osun State is very unsettling. It is not merely a question of frozen bank accounts, the placement of liens, or the activities of security agencies. Beneath these immediate controversies lies a more consequential question: where does the legitimate exercise of federal power end, and where does institutional overreach begin? The initial reports that all Osun State accounts had been frozen sent a chill through the public imagination. That news report was subsequently qualified: it was not every account, but certain accounts that had attracted the attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The commission has maintained that suspicious movements of money from the affected accounts into corporate accounts prompted its intervention. That allegation, if established by credible evidence, deserves serious investigation. Public money must never become the private preserve of political actors.

However, the manner, timing, and legal basis of such an investigation matter almost as much as the allegation itself. As explained by the EFCC, a lien was placed on the account rather than an indiscriminate freeze being imposed. But in the light of sound logic, the distinction sounds like legal semantics when the practical effect is the restriction of access to public funds. And therein lies the larger issue: how many state governments have suffered similar interventions, under what circumstances, and according to what transparent standard? The question is not whether the EFCC should investigate alleged financial crimes. Of course it should. The question is whether an anti-corruption agency, however noble its mandate, may exercise its powers in a manner that appears to diminish the constitutional autonomy of a federating state. This is especially important because Nigerians have, more often than not, questioned whether a state government’s account can be effectively restrained without appropriate judicial authority. The law is precisely the shield that protects both the innocent and the state itself from arbitrary power. As John Locke famously observed in Second Treatise of Government, “wherever law ends, tyranny begins.” The quotation is more than a philosophical ornament in the present circumstances. In a constitutional democracy, government agencies must operate within clearly defined legal boundaries. The fight against corruption cannot itself become an excuse for dispensing with due process.

There is, moreover, the problem of timing. The Osun controversy has unfolded against the background of an increasingly heated political contest ahead of the governorship election. The arrest of the Secretary to the State Government, Teslim Igbalaye, has only deepened public suspicion. The police say the arrest followed an operation in which cash, voter-related materials, and other items were recovered; the state government, on the other hand, has questioned the legality and motivation of the operation. Igbalaye was subsequently released while investigations continued. A commissioner has also been arrested, detained and released without charge. This is precisely where the principle that perception is reality becomes politically potent. It may be unfair to conclude that every federal action against Osun is politically motivated. Notwithstanding, government must understand that public confidence is not built merely by insisting that an action is lawful. It is built by making the process visibly, demonstrably, and consistently lawful.

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The concern becomes sharper because the dispute over Osun’s local government finances has already produced a prolonged confrontation between the state government and federal institutions. Since February 2025, the Federal Government has unlawfully withheld local government allocations to the state, an action we decried in a previous editorial. Thus, one controversy feeds another. A financial investigation is interpreted through the prism of a political struggle; a security operation is interpreted through the prism of an approaching election; and every intervention by a federal agency is viewed through the history of the battle between Abuja and Osogbo. This is dangerous. The ruling party has openly demonstrated interest in winning Osun. That is perfectly legitimate in a democracy. Political parties exist to contest elections and seek power. What is illegitimate is the use, or even the mere appearance of the use, of state institutions as instruments of partisan warfare. The President’s decision to order the unfreezing of the affected Osun account is therefore welcome, but it should not end the conversation. Rather, it should begin a more important one.

The lesson for the EFCC is that power must be exercised with restraint, transparency, and firm regard for constitutional boundaries. The commission’s war against corruption cannot afford to become a war against public confidence. Its credibility is one of its most valuable weapons; once Nigerians begin to believe that investigations are selective or politically timed, even legitimate prosecutions will be greeted with suspicion. The same lesson applies to the Federal Government. Abuja must resist the temptation to treat politically difficult states as hostile territories. A federation cannot function on the logic of conquest. States are not provinces awaiting instructions from the centre; they are constitutional components of the Nigerian union. And Osun State must equally submit itself to scrutiny. If public funds have indeed been diverted into suspicious corporate accounts, those responsible must answer for it. No political colour should provide immunity from accountability.

Shakespeare’s admonition in Measure for Measure remains pertinent: “The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.” Nigeria’s democracy cannot afford a law that wakes up only when convenient. The Osun episode should therefore end not merely with the unfreezing of accounts, but with institutional introspection. The EFCC must explain its actions. The Federal Government must reaffirm its commitment to the sanctity of federalism. The state government must welcome transparent investigations where credible allegations exist. And the courts must remain the ultimate arbiters of disputes over the limits of executive power. For if the fight against corruption destroys the confidence of citizens in the fairness of the institutions fighting corruption, the victory will be hollow. Osun is bigger than a governor, a party, an election, or an anti-graft agency. What is at stake is the principle that no institution of government should be powerful enough to stand above the law. That is the real lesson from the unsettling drama in Osun.