The Osun State government has sued the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the First Bank of Nigeria over what it described as the illegal freezing of its statutory allocation account.
The government, in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1762/2026, filed on August 5 before the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, is asking the court to nullify the anti-graft agency’s directive and award N2 billion as exemplary damages against the commission.
The EFCC, its executive chairman and First Bank of Nigeria Limited were listed as defendants in the suit.
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The government wants the court to determine “Whether, having regard to the express provisions of sections 1, 6, 36, 44 and 162 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), and Section 34 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Establishment Act, 2004, the 1st and 2nd Defendants possess the lawful authority to freeze, restrict, block, place a ‘post no debit’ order on, or otherwise interfere with the Osun State Statutory Account maintained with the this Defendant, without regard to due process of law”.
The state also wants the court to determine whether the anti-graft agency’s directive to First Bank to freeze the account, without a prior or concurrent order of a court of competent jurisdiction “does not constitute an egregious act of executive lawlessness, an unlawful resort to self-help, a flagrant abuse of statutory powers, an unlawful suppression of the constitutional powers and functions of the Plaintiffs, a threat to the constitutional and corporate existence of Osun State, a brazen and unlawful denial of the democratic rights and dividends of the people of Osun State, and a direct violation of the fundamental constitutional principles of due process, the rule of law, and the financial autonomy of a federating unit?”
While arguing that neither the EFCC nor the bank had the right to freeze or restrict access to the account without a subsisting order of a court of competent jurisdiction, the state also wants the court to declare the freezing unconstitutional, null and void.
It also seeks the court to declare that First Bank cannot lawfully deny it access to the account based solely on the EFCC’s August 5 letter “except in the manner stipulated by law”.
According to the suit, the court should issue perpetual injunctions restraining the defendants from further interfering with the account without judicial authorisation and award N2 billion as exemplary and aggravated damages for what the state termed as “unlawful interference with public funds”.
The legal step came after the EFCC froze the government’s statutory allocation accounts amid N11 billion probe.
Meanwhile, President Bola Tinubu ordered the EFCC to unfreeze the account and described the anti-graft agency’s action as embarrassing and ill-timed.
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