By Kenneth Gbandi
Nigeria is approaching a dangerous constitutional crossroads. The reported freezing of a major Osun State Government bank account by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) barely ten days before the governorship election is not an ordinary administrative action. It represents an unprecedented escalation in the apparent deployment of federal power against an opposition-controlled state.
Reports indicate that the affected account, domiciled with First Bank and used for vital government transactions including salary payments, was placed under a “Post No Debit” restriction without public disclosure of the alleged offence or the legal basis for intervention. Governor Ademola Adeleke has alleged that the action was executed without a court order, directing the state’s Attorney-General to challenge it in court.
Let us be clear: no government, governor, or public institution should be above investigation. Where there is credible evidence of corruption, the law must take its course transparently, impartially, and with full respect for due process. But when an anti-corruption agency restricts a state government’s operational account days before a decisive election, without promptly presenting the public with allegations, evidence, and judicial authority, Nigerians are entitled to ask whether law enforcement is being converted into political enforcement. This issue is bigger than Governor Adeleke or Osun State; it cuts to the heart of whether Nigerians remain free to associate with, campaign for, and elect a political party other than the one controlling the Federal Government. Democracy cannot survive selective justice.
The freezing of a government account does not punish a single governor or political party. It directly penalizes civil servants waiting for salaries, pensioners depending on monthly payments, hospitals requiring supplies, schools needing operational funds, and contractors employing ordinary citizens. Federal institutions must never be permitted to inflict economic hardship on an entire population simply because a state made a political choice that displeases Abuja. If allegations exist, publish them. If evidence exists, present it. If a court order exists, disclose it. If public officials have committed offences, prosecute them individually. Do not hold the treasury of an entire state hostage in the tense final days of an election.
The timing makes this intervention especially troubling. Democracy is not merely the holding of elections; it is the maintenance of conditions under which citizens can make political choices without intimidation, institutional coercion, or economic retaliation. Political association is not free if joining the opposition exposes members to selective investigations and financial strangulation. An election cannot be described as genuinely competitive if federal institutions appear to systematically weaken one side immediately before voting begins. This is how authoritarianism takes root, not through soldiers on the streets, but through the gradual weaponisation of legal institutions.
This incident is part of a troubling pattern that Nigerians can no longer ignore. Day after day, we witness the erosion of democratic safeguards and the expansion of executive power, often met with silence because the immediate victim belongs to another party, region, or group. We remained calm when fuel subsidy was declared removed, only for trillions in subsidy liabilities and energy-security expenditure to reappear through less transparent channels. We watched as the economic fallout of subsidy removal and currency devaluation drove up basic living costs, forcing families to deplete savings, small businesses to close, and young professionals to leave the country. Reform without protection for the vulnerable is not economic courage; it is the transfer of state failure to those least able to absorb it.
We remained calm when critical questions were raised about electoral transparency, including provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 that appeared to weaken grounds for challenging candidates accused of presenting forged credentials. What moral lesson does a nation teach its youth when academic fraud disqualifies an applicant from entry-level employment but becomes procedurally protected when the prize is public office?
We remained calm when lawmakers alleged discrepancies between tax-reform laws passed by the National Assembly and versions published in the official gazette, requiring certified copies and re-gazetting. We remained calm when reports revealed that an allegedly fictitious body, the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council secured roughly ₦1.3 billion in the 2026 national budget. We remained calm when the Senate ordered the arrest of former NNPCL leadership over unresolved audit queries involving disputed entries reportedly amounting to ₦210 trillion. We remained calm through electricity tariff hikes and deteriorating supply, and when respected religious leaders speaking on public accountability became targets of harsh political attacks. Criticism of government is not treason, and moral intervention is not partisan insurrection.
Justice must not only be done; Nigerians must see that it is being done without fear or favor. Those celebrating the restriction placed on Osun State’s finances today must remember an elementary truth: institutions weaponised against your opponent today will be weaponised against you tomorrow. The constitutional rights of a state government and its citizens do not disappear because an election is approaching.
History will record the lawyers who watched due process being weakened, the legislators who surrendered parliamentary authority, the intellectuals who exchanged truth for access, and the ordinary citizens who believed the oppression of their neighbor was none of their business. Dictatorship grows through repeated acts of impunity that society gradually learns to tolerate. First the opposition politician is targeted, then the journalist, then the activist, and eventually the ordinary citizen discovers there is nobody left to speak.
Nigeria’s present hardship is visible in the markets, motor parks, hospitals, schools, and increasingly empty kitchens of millions of families. People are working harder and becoming poorer, while those who question government policy are routinely dismissed as enemies of the state. Patriotism is not obedience to a president; patriotism is fidelity to the Constitution, justice, and the Nigerian people.
I call upon the EFCC to disclose immediately the precise legal and evidential basis for the restriction placed on the Osun State Government account. I call on the judiciary to treat this matter with urgency and complete independence, and I urge the National Assembly, the Nigerian Bar Association, civil society, labor unions, the media, and international democratic partners to demand transparency and respect for constitutional federalism.
Crucially, I call upon Nigerians in the diaspora. Distance must not become indifference. Living across the globe, the diaspora community sees firsthand how resilient democracies protect political opposition, restrain executive power, and preserve institutional independence. We must demand those exact standards for our homeland. Our position must not depend on whether the victim wears the colors of our preferred political party. Today it is Osun; tomorrow it may be another state, and eventually, every citizen who refuses to surrender conscience to power.
Nigeria belongs equally to the government and the opposition, to those who voted for the administration and those who did not. No leadership possesses the country as private political property. We must speak now for the survival of constitutional democracy itself. The question before us is no longer merely, “Which party will win the next election?” The more urgent question is: Will there still be a democracy worth winning?
Hon. Kenneth Gbandi is a veteran diaspora and ADC Diaspora Leader, at the forefront of sustained advocacy for credible elections, electoral technology reform, and accountable governance in Nigeria.
