By Kachi Okezie, Esq
The letter arrived, according to several accounts, on August 5th. It was addressed to First Bank and signed by an Assistant Commander of the EFCC. It was short and it was final. Do not allow withdrawals from the Osun State Government Statutory Allocation Account. Reason: ongoing investigation. The account in question bears the funds that pay teachers in Iwo, buy medicines for patients in Osogbo and keep the lights on in local government secretariats across the state. And the timing could not have been more curious. Ten days to a governorship election!
The EFCC says it has been looking into Osun since March, over Ecology Funds, Intervention Funds and FAAC allocations said to total N11 billion. It says suspicious movements were detected on August 2nd, and that is what forced its hand. But the Osun State government reports it differently. It calls it a witch-hunt. It brands it intimidation ahead of August 15th. Its Attorney-General is already threatening to go to court.
But here’s the thing: if you care about Nigeria, both things can be true at once. Yes, public money must be accounted for. And yes, the way we chase that money can do more damage than the alleged theft itself.
Let us not pretend that N11 billion is small change. Or that Ecology funds are for press conferences. They are intended for the gullies that cut communities in two during the rainy season. Intervention funds are for when hospitals run out of oxygen. FAAC money is what keeps the most ordinary parts of government alive. If any of it was diverted, someone must answer. That is the entire point of having an anti-graft agency. No governor, no state, no party should be treated as sacred. A democracy that cannot ask questions about its own treasury will eventually have no treasury left to ask about.
But then there is the method. And method is where democracy lives or dies. Freezing a statutory allocation account is not like freezing one man’s savings. It is like turning off the main tap. The people who feel it first are not the ones in the Government House. It is the nurse who will not get paid this month. It is the pensioner in Ede who has waited 90 days already. It is the contractor who supplied cement for a road and now cannot pay his boys. That is why this tool, though legal, is so dangerous. It is effective precisely because it is blunt.
In a federation, even punishment must wear the clothes of due process. Was there a court order, or was this an administrative directive? Were exemptions carved out for salaries and essential services? Did the state get a final opportunity to explain those “suspicious movements” before the padlock went on? Without answers, the action stops looking like law enforcement and starts looking like politics in a different uniform. And when that happens ten days to an election, nobody believes it is a coincidence. Timing is a language in politics, and this timing is very odd, indeed.
What makes it worse, what truly poisons the well, is memory. Nigerians have long memory for double standards. We have watched the EFCC for two decades now. We know the rhythm. When the file involves a state or an official that is aligned with the centre, the tone is different. It becomes “we are monitoring the situation.” “Due process must be followed.” “The investigation is ongoing.” Files get thin. Cases get adjourned. Press releases become gentle.
But when the target is on the other side, the language sharpens overnight. “Immediate action.” “Decisive steps.” Letters to banks before the sun is up. Briefings to the press before the suspects have been questioned.
We have seen governors walk into the EFCC building with a cloud over their heads, and walk out months later with a new party card and a clean slate. We have seen petitions against powerful people gather dust until the political season is over. We have seen allegations raised in Osun itself months ago, about a reported N13.7 billion ghost worker scheme, and heard nothing until now. And yet, the moment a statutory account belonging to an opposition-led state is involved, the Commission moves with speed that suggests the house is on fire.
That is the hypocrisy that kills trust. It is not that the Osun case is necessarily false. It may be entirely true. The problem is that the EFCC has taught Nigerians, through years of selective action, not to judge a case on its facts but to judge it on its politics. If you are with us, you get patience. If you are against us, you get the hammer. That is not justice. That’s not rule of law. That is lawfare. And lawfare is more corrosive than corruption, because it tells citizens that the rules are fake.
You cannot build a democracy on such foundation. You cannot ask people to believe in institutions that keep demonstrating to them that the law has two faces.
There are older men and women in this country who remember the early 1960s, the Western Region, the “Wild West.” They remember how it did not start with riots but started quietly. With the centre using federal agencies to squeeze an opposition region. With elections being tilted. With the sense that if you were not with the people in power, the state itself would come for you. By the time the streets caught fire, the institutions were already broken.
We are not there. But the ingredients are uncomfortably familiar. A federal agency. A state government. An election around the corner. Accusations from both sides. And citizens who no longer know who to believe.
If care is not taken, we will pay a costly price. Maybe not with cutlasses this time. Maybe with protests, with shutdowns, with a generation that decides that if the game is rigged, then why play by the rules.
So what now?The courts must step in, and quickly. Osun has said it will sue. Good. Let a judge decide whether this freeze is lawful, whether it is proportionate, and whether the state can keep paying salaries while the investigation runs. Let the law speak instead of press statements.
The EFCC must also choose transparency over secrecy. Publish the petition. Explain what those suspicious transactions were. Show Nigerians why this account and not another. And show what arrangements exist so that ordinary civil servants do not become collateral damage. Secrecy in the name of investigation only breeds more suspicion.
And the Commission must look itself in the mirror. It must pursue the ghost worker allegations in Osun with the same energy. It must pursue cases in friendly states with the same urgency. If it cannot, then it should stop pretending to be independent. Nigerians can handle the truth. What we cannot handle is the pretence.
The political parties in Osun also have a responsibility. Fight the election. Campaign. Debate. Convince voters. But do not fight it through bank compliance departments. The moment we accept that elections are won with EFCC letters instead of votes, we have all lost.
For us as citizens, the task is harder. We have to learn to hold two thoughts at the same time. We must condemn corruption wherever we find it. But we must also condemn the weaponisation of anti-corruption. A government can be corrupt and still be a victim of political targeting. An agency can be right about the facts and still be wrong about the process. If we only cheer when the hammer falls on the other side, we are not defending democracy. We are defending our team.
This Osun case is a test. For the EFCC, the test is whether it can investigate without looking partisan. For the Osun government, the test is whether it can open its books and prove the money is clean instead of hiding behind slogans. For all of us, the test is whether we still believe that the law must be equal, or we have given up and accepted that it is just another tool for power.
And public office should not mean a license to loot. But fighting corruption should also not mean a license for impunity. The EFCC has work to do. Osun State has a government to run. And Nigeria has a democracy to keep alive.
We can do all three. But only if we agree that the law is either for everyone, or it is for no one. Anything less, and the ghost of the Wild West – “Operation Wetie” – will not remain in history books. It will be the story we tell our children about how we lost our way as a nation.
—Kachi Okezie, Esq is a legal practitioner and chartered mediator.
