The drama exposed how an anti-corruption agency can zoom to action to please the master of corruption for his pleasure. A man that has time immemorial never knows what sincerity and honesty entails. A man, who faked even his origin, and name traded in hard drugs, and involved in all manner of crimes for illicit wealth, yet claims to be holier-than-thou.
While always ready to act on orders, Ola Olukoyede, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman, is waiting possibly for marching orders from Bola Ahmed Tinubu despite several submitted credible petitions to visit the financial books of the goose that lays the golden egg (NNPCL) that was almost murdered to death by corruption under the management of Mele Kyari, with particular reference to the purported missing N210trillion believed to have developed wings from the Corporation’s vault to unknown destination.
Some suspects allegedly connected to the missing NNPCL remittance, cleverly made bold to appear before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts probing the allegation that emanated from the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation. The guys presented bogus figures, displayed logic spiced with long literature to over stress the Senate Committee members to possibly escape the hammer while the main suspect, Mele Kyari remains in hiding under the claim of attending to his health abroad. If not because he was sacked in June 2025 and invited by the Senate Committee for questioning, could he have been that long claiming to be attending to his health abroad? Mele is just being clever by half!
If we are to believe the defense of the two suspects and the claim of Mele Kyari, we can as well as perceived idiots believe that Nigeria is not an oil producing country. And that the accounting profession is completely a fiction for entertainment.
While Olukoyede waited for marching orders, the out-of-stage concert that was played over Osun State funds says a lot about the laughing stock that Nigeria has become under Tinubu before the international community. Even to Nigerians, the drama was poorly rehearsed by those seen on stage. If anything, the principal actors could easily pass for what William Shakespeare described as poor players who strut and fret upon the stage and heard no more.
Let us patiently put it like this. Bola Ahmed Tinubu as characteristic of his style, ordered Ola Olukoyede, EFCC Chairman to go for the jugular of Osun State Government. Dissolve, if you like freeze, the funds that gives Governor Ademola Adeleke and his government a lifeline. Castrate them with the action so that they will have no choice but to bow to All Progressives Congress (APC) and its rampaging army in the August 15, 2026 gubernatorial election. The EFCC was, of course, ordered to ensure that it came up with a plausible excuse to justify its action.
For receiving the presidential handout, EFCC hurriedly went to work with zeal. But as an amateur player, it bungled the plan from the very first scene of what was programmed to be an epic. Obviously embarrassed by the infantilism that his kindergartener of a co-conspirator brought to bear on what was supposed to be a grand master plan, Tinubu hurriedly invaded the stage unceremoniously and disappointed. He then went for Plan B to save face. He practically shoved EFCC and its head aside in order to save them and himself from the show of shame that took place and courageously resisted.
What played out in Tinubu’s state of origin, Osun, was an orchestrated sleight of hand. Nigerians have been accustomed to some high drama defections, mockery of mandate, compromised judgments etc rocking the political scene all geared to the success of a Tinubu 2027 rigging strategy.
Tinubu and his APC, intent on preparing the ground for the ultimate electoral battle of January 2027, had decided to use the Osun election as a litmus test case. The state must be won by APC by fair or foul means. The governor of the state who is not a good friend of the presidency must be taught some hard lessons of how rigging is perfected. His backbone must be broken. When they succeed in dismantling Osun State Government apparatchik, a chunk of the battle for 2027 would have been won. The APC campaign Council for the Osun election, has so far, left no one in doubt as to what grand design it has. That explains the magic lantern show that is playing out in the state, and may be played in other states that proved ‘stubborn’ for rejecting defection to APC.
If you ask Tinubu of his involvement, as usual of him, he will deceive and fool you, as he did in the case of INEC that the EFCC is always neutral and independent in operations. That it is doing its job professionally. But that is as far as it goes. Nigerians do not need any further deceit, lie or brainwashing on the disposition of agencies of the federal government under Tinubu.
They are creations of the law, in which case, they are supposed to operate within the ambit of the laws establishing them. But under the Tinubu style, that is merely on paper not in reality. What constitutes the law in their operations is what the appointing authority, in this case, Tinubu says. It is so because the appointing authority has the power to hire and fire. And so when a typical greedy Nigerian without morals is appointed by Tinubu to such a sensitive office, he/she loses composure and credibility faster than can be imagined.
Nyeson Ezonwo Wike, serving Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, has lost what remained of his credibility and trust. In fact, Wike is seen as Tinubu’s area boy and a mad dog for the falling bones of power. Any mistake from Wike that push Tinubu to act that will be the end of Wike’s political career and stupidity.
Joash Amupitan’s INEC has since been swallowed by this consuming set-up to the extent that Nigerians have, lost confidence and trust in anything Amupitan. He has dented his reputation as a reputable scholar and minister in the temple of justice.
EFCC’s Ola Olukoyede has been pretending to be independent all this while until the Osun State misadventure finally exposed his underbelly and sycophancy.
Olukoyede assumed office as EFCC chairman with a different kind of background. Those who held the office before him, Nuhu Ribadu, Farida Waziri, Ibrahim Lamorde, Ibrahim Magu, and AbdulRasheed Bawa, had their backgrounds in policing and public affairs. But Olukoyede as a lawyer without policing background but a Certified Fraud Examiner, the perception therefore, was that he would bring a reasonable level of professionalism and integrity to bear on his assignment against looting and stealing more than what Ribadu and Magu exhibited. That was the assumption. Today, people have cause to fault Olukoyede over some of his actions since he took up the testy assignment. But none ever took the dimension as the case of Osun State.
Osun shattered the pretentious windscreen that Olukoyede had been hiding behind since assumption of office. In trying to please and serve not Nigerians, but Tinubu and his party, Olukoyede went the way of the corrupt he was appointed to hunt with expertise and courage, arrest and prosecute.
The reason adduced by the EFCC for its action in Osun is finally offensive and meant for the dead. The Commission said it noticed huge movement of funds from certain accounts of the state to channels it considered suspicious. Can this really pass for a reason to freeze the accounts of the whole state government? The Commission just acted on mere suspicious movement of funds without verifying destination and purpose of the funds? Haba Oga Olukoyede? Do you expect Nigerians to believe this your folk tale as a genuine reason? Even your children cannot believe that to pass for truth.
In any case, when did even the EFCC become such an octopus that breathes down on states? If the Commission’s jejune excuse is allowed to become a standard practice, it will then mean states will be financially autonomous only to the extent allowed or permitted by the Commission. Such set-up, if it becomes the norm, it will seriously erode the power of states in a federation. It will also mean that the Act that established the Commission is skewed against the states not against corrupt practices and other related crimes. This can neither be the spirit nor the latter of the law that established the anti-corruption agency.
Besides, if EFCC is monitoring movement of funds from the accounts run by Osun State Government, is it doing same to the other 35 states, the presidency, the national assembly; the judiciary, ministries, departments, agencies and security organs of government? Where was the EFCC monitoring when N210trillion got ‘missing’ from NNPCL under Mele Kyari and other sharp corrupt practices that rocked the foundation of the federal corporation?
If not, why Osun State the target at election time? Nigerians know why. That was why he stepped forward hurriedly to pull a fast one on Nigerians. Tinubu clearly did not try in the matter. Nobody was taken by the subterfuge. Nigerians know that EFCC did not act on its own. It merely executed an order from the presidency. But the snag here is that Tinubu’s errand boy failed him at the most needed time. Then Tinubu, believing and deceiving himself to be the smartest and stubborn politician living today, tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the gullible and the docile at the expense of his undiscerning errand boy. His reversal of EFCC’s freezing order was not done in good faith. It was sheer make-belief.
By instructing EFCC to unfreeze the accounts of Osun State Government, Tinubu simply left the Commission in the cold and confused state. He wants Nigerians to see him as a good leader and unbiased father that hear kens to the cries of his aggrieved or oppressed ‘children’. Since when did Tinubu become compassionate to the extent of trying to save his political opponent that is a threat to his 2027 re-election dream? The Tinubu Nigerians have known, is not made of that stuff. There is, therefore, more to the freeze that meets the eyes. It is strictly speaking, more of appearance than reality.
Tinubu is already confused, jittery and running short of ideas on how to re-impose himself on Nigerians by all means possible in 2027. In 2023, he said he bought the position. But in 2027, who would be the salesman at INEC and the Judiciary? Who wants to risk his life for such a bargain? Tinubu cares less about the feelings of Nigerians. All he cares for is to rig his way and remain in Aso Rock as another four-year tenant creating more hardships on Nigerians, sourcing foreign loans for abuse, and using taxation as the culprit while Gilbert Chougoury is relaxing in France receiving lucrative Nigerian contracts for the Tinubu family as Nigerians pay the brunt.
In unison, Nigerians must either defeat Tinubu’s lust for power in 2027, or be prepared for second slavery in an independent country claiming to be enjoying democracy but on paper.
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues.
