Blessing Bello, Reporting
THE House of Representatives Minority Caucus has launched a blistering attack on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, accusing him of issuing a “panicky, belated afterthought” directive to the anti-graft agency amid a deepening row over the freezing of Osun State’s accounts.
In a statement signed by Leader Hon. Fredrick Agbedi and Spokesman Hon. Afam Victor Ogene, the opposition lawmakers said the President’s intervention was forced by “massive public outcry” rather than any respect for the rule of law. The move, they argued, exposed an administration “at war with itself” and a deliberate plot to intimidate the Osun State Government ahead of next week’s gubernatorial election.
‘A Government at War With Itself’
The Caucus seized on what it called a “brazen contradiction” within the Tinubu administration. While EFCC Spokesman Mr. Wilson Uwujaren stated on national television on Thursday that the freezing of Osun’s account was done “without a valid court order,” the President’s statement later that same afternoon directed the Commission to go to court to “vacate the order.”
“So, which is it? Was there a court order or not?” the statement asked. “Is the President not aware of what his own appointees are saying and doing? Has the President lost control to his army of sycophants who behave like lords over the people? Or are they simply trying to hide an illegality that has already been exposed?”
The Minority Caucus further accused senior presidential aides of being the first to circulate and defend the EFCC’s initial press release, adding: “It is, therefore, insulting for the President to pretend ignorance… Nigerians are not fools.”
‘Pattern of High-Handedness’
The lawmakers described the August 5 EFCC action as the latest in a sustained campaign of intimidation against Osun by the APC-led Federal Government. They listed four separate but inter-related incidents:
· Seizure of LG Allocations: “For months, the Federal Government has illegally withheld and seized statutory allocations due to Osun Local Governments. This is economic strangulation aimed at crippling governance at the grassroots ahead of elections.”
· Police Inaction: Alleged “unending violence perpetrated by APC members and imported thugs in Osun,” with “curious and deliberate inaction” by the Police.
· Gestapo-Style Arrests: The “arrest and detention of the Secretary to the Osun State Government, Teslim Igbalaiye and others over flimsy accusations” – which they called “a direct attack on the institution of the state government.”
· Partisan Propaganda: The “disrespectful conduct” of the Osun Police Commissioner and the manner in which an IGP visit ended with “baseless, politically-motivated allegations that the State Government is ‘harbouring hoodlums in the Government House.’”
‘Osun is Not a Conquered Territory’
Warning that the APC had “weaponized federal institutions against opposition states,” the lawmakers said: “Yes, Mr. President hails from Osun, but the state cannot be a personal fiefdom; he must therefore allow the people to freely choose who governs them.”
They called on civil society and the international community to hold the APC and federal government responsible for any breakdown of law and order, concluding: “Osun people will vote. Osun people will be protected. And democracy will prevail.”
