Osun rejects ₦11bn looting allegation, accuses EFCC of political motive

The Osun State Government has denied allegations that about ₦11 billion was misappropriated from its treasury, insisting that no public funds were looted and accusing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of pursuing a politically motivated investigation.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, described the anti-graft agency’s reported allegations as an attempt to justify what the state government called the unlawful freezing of one of its bank accounts.

According to Alimi, the decision to place the account under restriction was influenced by former Governor Gboyega Oyetola as part of an effort to frustrate the payment of cost-of-living support approved for civil servants ahead of the August 15 governorship election.

The commissioner, however, said the state government had successfully paid the approved palliative to workers after concluding negotiations with organised labour, despite the reported restriction on the account.

He explained that the intervention formed part of the government’s measures to cushion the effects of the current economic hardship, adding that similar welfare programmes had previously been implemented by the administration.

The Osun Government also rejected allegations of financial misconduct, maintaining that available public funds had been deployed to infrastructure projects, workers’ welfare and other developmental programmes.

According to the statement, the EFCC has been investigating senior government officials since March 2026 but has yet to establish evidence linking any of them to financial crimes.

The government further alleged that repeated invitations extended to its officials amounted to harassment intended to distract the administration from governance.

It argued that if the EFCC possessed credible evidence of wrongdoing, the Commission should have followed the appropriate legal process rather than freezing government accounts.

Describing the allegations as baseless, the state government accused the anti-graft agency of attempting to damage Osun State’s reputation in order to justify an action that it claimed had attracted widespread public criticism.

The statement followed the EFCC’s reported explanation that the restriction placed on the state’s account was intended to prevent the alleged diversion of public funds ahead of the August 15 governorship election.

As of the time of filing this report, the EFCC had not issued any further statement responding to the Osun State Government’s latest allegations.

The exchange between the Osun State Government and the EFCC comes against the backdrop of heightened political activities ahead of the August 15 governorship election.

In recent months, the Osun chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and some of its affiliated groups have petitioned the EFCC, alleging financial irregularities in the management of state funds and calling for the freezing of accounts linked to the alleged diversion of public money.

Governor Ademola Adeleke’s administration has consistently rejected the allegations, describing them as politically motivated and insisting that public funds have been lawfully applied to governance, infrastructure and workers’ welfare.

The disagreement has become one of the major political flashpoints ahead of the governorship election, with both the state government and opposition figures maintaining sharply differing positions on the allegations.