Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has directed the state Attorney-General to withdraw the suit filed against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over the freezing of the state government’s statutory accounts.
Adeleke said the decision followed President Bola Tinubu’s intervention in the dispute, adding that he was satisfied with the President’s action.
The governor disclosed this in an interview with Channels Television on Sunday, hours after he was declared winner of the August 15 governorship election and secured a second term in office.
Adeleke said he had instructed the Attorney-General to discontinue the case following a telephone conversation with Tinubu.
“I’m putting them behind. What else do I want? I have instructed my Attorney General to drop it. Mr President has done well. He called me. What more do I want?” Adeleke said.
He said Tinubu’s intervention was sufficient to resolve the matter, adding that he believed the President was not initially aware of the EFCC’s decision to restrict the state’s account.
“Most of these things, the President doesn’t know. The President has a lot of foreign work and jobs to do,” he said.
However, Adeleke alleged that former Osun State governor and Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola, was behind the EFCC’s action.
“All these things is Oyetola because he is the cousin to the President. He is dropping the President’s name,” Adeleke alleged.
The governor did not provide evidence during the interview to substantiate the allegation.
Oyetola, who governed Osun from 2018 to 2022, is a prominent member of the All Progressives Congress and was the party’s candidate in the 2022 governorship election, which Adeleke won.
The dispute between the state government and the EFCC began in early August, days before the governorship election, when the commission restricted a bank account belonging to the Osun State Government.
The EFCC said it had been investigating the state government since March 2026 over alleged financial misconduct involving ecology funds, intervention funds and Federal Account Allocation Committee funds totalling about N11 billion.
The commission also alleged that funds were moved to suspicious accounts from August 2, prompting the restriction.
The action sparked controversy because it came shortly before the governorship election, with the Adeleke administration describing the EFCC’s move as politically motivated.
The state government subsequently approached the Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking an order declaring the EFCC’s action unlawful and demanding N2 billion in exemplary damages.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1762/2026, was reportedly filed on August 5.
The controversy intensified on August 6 when President Tinubu directed the EFCC to return to court to vacate the order freezing the state’s accounts and discontinue the related proceedings.
Tinubu said he was concerned about the timing of the EFCC’s action, given that the state was only days away from its governorship election.
The President also said actions by federal government agencies were often attributed to the Presidency even when he had no prior knowledge of them.
He maintained that he had deliberately avoided interfering in the operational activities of anti-corruption agencies but considered the timing of the Osun action sufficiently concerning to warrant his intervention.
Meanwhile, Adeleke also addressed reports that some members of his administration had been invited by the EFCC for questioning.
He said he had directed his lawyers to assist the affected officials.
“Well, we have been talking. I have been calling all my lawyers to go there,” Adeleke said.
The governor maintained that the invitations were politically motivated but acknowledged that some of the officials who honoured the EFCC’s invitations had been released after questioning.
The EFCC has, however, rejected allegations of political motivation, maintaining that its investigation relates to alleged financial misconduct and that its actions were carried out within its statutory powers.
Adeleke’s decision to withdraw the suit came shortly after his victory in the August 15 governorship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission declared Adeleke, who contested under the Accord Party, winner after he secured 511,067 votes.
His closest challenger, the All Progressives Congress candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, polled 444,815 votes, giving Adeleke a winning margin of 66,252 votes.
