The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the 2027 election, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has defended the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, against calls for his resignation over the freezing of the Osun State Government’s bank accounts, insisting that President Bola Tinubu should instead be held accountable for the controversy.
Adebayo argued that the anti-graft agency merely carried out its statutory responsibilities by obtaining a court order to freeze the accounts under investigation, maintaining that the real constitutional issue arose when President Tinubu reportedly directed the commission to reverse the action.
According to him, any presidential intervention in an ongoing law enforcement process undermines the rule of law and compromises the independence of investigative institutions.
Speaking with journalists at the SDP National Secretariat in Abuja on Thursday, Adebayo said the EFCC, the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies should be allowed to perform their duties without political interference.
He stressed that if the Osun State Government believed the freezing of its accounts was unlawful, the appropriate course of action was to challenge the decision through the courts rather than demand the removal of the EFCC chairman.
Adebayo 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.”
He insisted that criticisms directed at Olukoyede were misplaced, arguing that the EFCC chairman was simply carrying out responsibilities assigned to the commission under Nigerian law.
Reacting to growing calls for Olukoyede’s resignation, Adebayo shifted responsibility squarely to President Tinubu, accusing him of interfering in the operations of an independent law enforcement agency.
He 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.”
Beyond the Osun account controversy, Adebayo criticised what he described as poor governance under the Tinubu administration, saying Nigerians should demand accountability from those at the highest levels of government instead of targeting officials heading public institutions.
He maintained that Nigeria’s democratic institutions would function better if law enforcement agencies were insulated from political influence and allowed to carry out their constitutional responsibilities.
Addressing speculation about opposition alliances ahead of the 2027 general election, the SDP flagbearer dismissed suggestions that coalition politics should be the primary focus.
He argued that Nigeria’s priority should be producing a president committed to constitutional governance, transparency and the rule of law, regardless of the political platform through which such a candidate emerges.
Adebayo also rejected narratives portraying Northern Nigeria as the country’s major developmental challenge, insisting the region possesses enormous human and natural resources capable of driving economic prosperity if properly harnessed through investments in education, agriculture and infrastructure.
He further criticised what he described as the Tinubu administration’s handling of national issues, including its response to concerns raised by Catholic bishops, urging leaders to embrace constructive criticism instead of becoming defensive.
Calling on religious and community leaders to continue speaking truth to those in power, he said public officials should see criticism as an opportunity to improve governance.
Looking ahead to the 2027 presidential election, Adebayo said the objective should be to unite Nigerians behind a credible alternative capable of delivering effective leadership.
He 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 sharp assessment of the current administration, saying: “A failed government is one in which the explanation is worse than the problem.”
(Ripples)