By Henry Umoru
Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, ahead of the 2027 election, Prince Adewole Adebayo has taken a swipe at calls for the removal of the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, over the freezing of Osun State Government’s accounts.
Adebayo declared that President Bola Tinubu, not the Chairman of the EFCC, should resign over the president’s directive reversing the freezing of the Osun State Government’s accounts.
He argued that while political pressure has mounted on EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede to step aside, the anti-graft agency merely exercised powers granted to it by law by obtaining a court order freezing the accounts under investigation.
According to him, the real constitutional breach occurred when President Tinubu publicly directed the EFCC to vacate the court-backed action, describing such intervention as an assault on the rule of law and the independence of law enforcement institutions.
Adebayo said that rather than point accusing fingers at the EFCC over the Osun State Government account crisis, the responsibility for the controversy surrounding the EFCC action rested with President Bola Tinubu, alleging that the President had interfered with the independence of a law enforcement agency.
Speaking with journalists on Thursday in Abuja at the SDP National Secretariat, the SDP candidate, who noted that he supported law enforcement institutions, said that agencies such as the EFCC, police and other security services should be allowed to operate within the law.
He said that if Osun State believed its accounts were wrongly frozen, it had legal options, including challenging the action in court, adding that the EFCC chairman should not be blamed for exercising powers granted by law and supervised by the judiciary.
Adebayo, who argued that the major constitutional concern was any attempt by political office holders to direct investigations or influence the operations of law enforcement agencies, said: “If EFCC wrongly froze the account of Osun State Government, there are legal remedies that could be taken to unfreeze it, including getting damages against EFCC.”
The SDP Presidential candidate also criticised what he described as poor leadership under the Tinubu administration, and called on Nigerians to focus on accountability rather than targeting officials heading government institutions.
Adebayo said, “Going by the drama over Osun account freezes and President Bola Tinubu ordered to unfreeze it. Do you support the growing call for EFCC chairman to go for alleged office abuse? And resignation, yes. Well, the person who should resign is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I don’t have enough evidence to suggest that the EFCC chairman should resign. The only person who is at fault here is the President himself. Because EFCC is a very difficult place to work.
“From my own personal assessment of Olukayode, the EFCC chairman, I think that he wants to do his job. And I have always supported the EFCC right from the time of Nuhu Ribadu, up to the only lady who has ever been EFCC chairman, down to the present one. I’ve always supported law enforcement.
“I am not a politician that will criticise the IG of police, EFCC chairman, DG DSS, because those are difficult jobs to do, or army staff, or any service personnel, because these are difficult jobs to do under a very bad government. So the buck stops at the table of the President. The confusion in Osun is caused by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and I don’t know why Nigerians are always shy to ask and incompetent and obviously corrupt President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to resign.
“Nigerians are always going for the weak targets. Oh, Chief of Staff should resign. Did the Chief of Staff appoint himself? Did he instruct himself? Next, they’re always looking for a weak person. So the person who should go is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, because the Attorney General is the only political person who has authority to advise or interact with EFCC.
“So for the President to purport to order EFCC is already an impeachable offence, because EFCC is part of the legal process in Nigeria. And as a lawyer, I’ve done cases against EFCC; I’ve defended people before EFCC, and just like police. The law is clear on how to get it right.
“If EFCC wrongly froze the account of Osun State Government, there are legal remedies that could be taken to unfreeze, including getting damages against EFCC. You will see that Dr. Olu Agunloye, the National Secretary of the SDP, got a huge judgment against EFCC, and he’s going to get a bigger one very soon, nothing being equal.
“But we in SDP have never insulted EFCC. We’ve never interfered with them, because if you want to live in a country of rule of law, you must give the professionals who are in charge of maintaining rule of law freedom to act, because there is sufficient safeguard on how to use the law to protect yourself.
“So you cannot politicise all of them. You were here when the police, the State Police, came to these premises to chase everybody out of our own national secretariat. We did not ask that the IGP should resign. We did not ask that IG should resign.
“What we did was we took the police, we took everybody through the legal process. So it is still the same police that came here illegally to eject us from the office, that same police who came legally to put us back. So what I bring out of this is that as far as we are concerned in the SDP, we do not antagonise law enforcement agencies; even when they make errors, we know how to deal with them legally.
“So President Tinubu ought to be impeached if there was a National Assembly. But now he should resign because what he’s saying is that he has power to instruct EFCC, go against this person, don’t go against this person. He’s even instructing them to go to court and withdraw.
“No, if Osun State believes that their account has been wrongly frozen, the Attorney General of Osun State can go to court. Even the Attorney General of Osun State can go straight to Supreme Court to sue the federal government to court. So I don’t want to politicise the issue. All the governments are committing crimes, all of them. And all of them are using public money to do elections.
“So the only thing I advise EFCC is that when they are doing bribery and buying of votes negatively, even though it’s an APC state, you ought to act. If they are doing it in another state, including Osun, you have the right to act. If you see an SDP person giving money to a voter, he’s liable to be arrested.
“We in SDP will not say, oh, EFCC, leave our member alone. We will say, take him to court, go and prove it. So we will not join in any call for EFCC chairman to resign. We would rather strengthen him because the person who is at fault here now is President Tinubu. He’s the one who is at fault because if the EFCC froze their account, they must have filed an affidavit before the court to give the order. If EFCC is wrong, what of the court? The court must have seen that there is something that is there.
“And if the Attorney General of the Federation does not have an opinion on this matter, while the President, the politician, a well-known lawbreaker, is now interfering openly in the legal process and ordering agencies of law up and down, it is wrong. In fact, if a person was arrested for exceeding speed limit or not having a driver’s license, if somebody from the villa called the police to say release that person, that person from the villa has broken the law. So what is wrong here, in my view, is not necessarily that EFCC froze Osun’s account.
“Osun has all the legal remedies they can take if they think that it’s wrongly frozen. What is a constitutional crisis is that the President, a politician, is now the one directing a lawful body on how to investigate, not to investigate. And that’s that.”
On calls for opposition parties to unite against the President ahead of the 2027 elections, Adebayo said Nigeria’s constitution provides for only one president at a time, whether candidates emerge through coalitions or individual parties.
He said the priority should be electing a leader committed to the rule of law, accountability and good governance.
Adebayo also defended Northern Nigeria against narratives portraying the region as a major challenge to the country’s development, saying the North had significant human and natural resources that could drive economic growth if properly harnessed.
He called for greater investment in education, agriculture and infrastructure, saying poor leadership, rather than any region, was responsible for many of Nigeria’s challenges.
Expanding his criticism beyond the Osun controversy, the SDP presidential candidate accused the Tinubu administration of repeatedly undermining constitutional governance and failing to respond adequately to national concerns.
He cited the President’s recent engagement with Catholic bishops as another missed opportunity, arguing that rather than addressing the concerns raised by respected religious leaders, the administration chose a defensive posture.
On the role of religious leaders in national affairs, Adebayo urged clerics and community leaders to continue speaking truth to power and supporting efforts to improve governance.
He said leaders should be open to criticism and use constructive feedback to improve their performance.
Ahead of the 2027 elections, Adebayo, who dismissed speculations about opposition coalition arithmetic, insisting that the central objective should be national unity behind a credible alternative, said, “What we want is for all Nigerians to unite not only the opposition… The issue is ensuring that person is not President Tinubu.”
He concluded with a scathing assessment of the administration’s performance, arguing that Nigeria’s crisis has become deeper than policy failures, saying, “A failed government is one in which the explanation is worse than the problem.”
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