By Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D
There are moments in governance when doing what appears right creates another problem altogether. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s intervention in the controversy over the freezing of Osun State Government accounts by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, presents precisely such a dilemma.
The President’s concern was understandable. The EFCC had obtained a court order freezing the accounts only days before a governorship election in which Tinubu’s own All Progressives Congress was seeking to wrest power from the opposition-controlled state.
The timing was troubling. Whatever the merits of the investigation, an action capable of disrupting an opposition government’s finances so close to an election was bound to create the appearance of partisan interference.
Tinubu recognised that danger. He directed the EFCC to return to court and seek to vacate the order, without challenging the Commission’s right to investigate or ordering it to abandon whatever had led it to court.
His objection was to the timing. He said he was not embarrassed that the EFCC had exercised its statutory mandate pursuant to a court order, but he was deeply concerned that nothing should create the impression of federal interference in the Osun election.
On the surface, that was an intervention deserving of commendation. Here was a President whose party could conceivably benefit from an opposition state’s difficulties, yet he acted to remove a cloud over the electoral environment. But democracy requires us to look beyond immediate outcomes, and that is where the difficulty begins.
Should a President intervene in the operational decisions of an anti-corruption agency, even for legitimate reasons? It is tempting to answer by looking only at Tinubu’s intention. That would be a mistake. Institutions are not built around the presumed good intentions of office holders. They are built around principles.
The true test of a governance principle is not whether we are comfortable with its use by a leader we trust. It is whether we would remain comfortable with the same power in the hands of a leader we distrust.
Today, a President intervenes because he fears an EFCC action could compromise confidence in an election. Tomorrow, another could intervene because an investigation threatens a political ally. Both may invoke national interest. Both may insist their intervention is exceptional.
Where, then, is the line? That is why institutional independence matters. The EFCC exists to investigate and prosecute economic and financial crimes, and its credibility depends substantially on the public believing that whom it investigates, when and how are not dictated by political convenience. The closer such decisions move towards presidential control, the harder that confidence becomes to sustain.
Yet institutional independence cannot mean institutional irresponsibility. The EFCC is not a republic unto itself. It is a public institution established by law and subject to law. Its decisions can be challenged in court, its activities are subject to legislative oversight, and its officers must operate within statutory limits. Like every institution wielding coercive state power, it must remain accountable.
The question is not whether the EFCC should answer for its actions. It must. The question is to whom, through what process and within what limits.
That distinction is crucial, and the Osun episode complicates it further, because the EFCC did not freeze the accounts by administrative fiat. It went to court. A judicial officer considered the application and granted the order. At least three institutions were therefore implicated: the EFCC that sought the order, the judiciary that granted it, and the Presidency that later demanded the Commission return to vacate it.
This institutional triangle deserves scrutiny. If the freezing order was legally justified, on what basis should political timing cause the EFCC to retreat? If the timing made it inappropriate, should that have occurred to the Commission before it approached the court? And if the electoral consequences were foreseeable, should the court have weighed proportionality before granting so extensive an order?
These questions matter more than assigning political blame. They expose a weakness in institutional decision-making.
The ideal outcome in a mature democracy is not for the President to become the emergency brake whenever an independent institution exercises poor judgement. It is for institutions to possess sufficient competence, independence and judgement that presidential correction is rarely needed.
There is a further reason for caution. Presidential intervention, once normalised, can easily become presidential interference, and the distinction may depend entirely on who tells the story. Supporters will call it responsible intervention; opponents will call the same act political interference. Institutions protect society from that ambiguity by establishing processes that do not depend on personalities.
Perhaps, then, the lesson from Osun is not that Tinubu should have remained silent. Faced with an action he believed could compromise confidence in an election, silence might itself have read as acquiescence, particularly since his own party stood to benefit. The more important lesson is that the system should never have reached the point where presidential intervention became necessary.
The EFCC should have internal mechanisms capable of assessing not only the legality of extraordinary enforcement actions but their necessity and proportionality. The judiciary must remain alert to the wider implications of orders capable of disrupting government functions, without allowing political considerations to override the law. And where legitimate disagreements arise, established legal mechanisms should resolve them, rather than presidential discretion becoming the default remedy.
Nigeria needs a strong President. But it needs strong institutions even more. A strong President can solve today’s problem; strong institutions prevent tomorrow’s.
Tinubu’s intervention may have helped protect public confidence in the immediate Osun process, and that deserves acknowledgement. But the more enduring achievement would be an institutional architecture in which no President, however well intentioned, needs to tell an anti-corruption agency when to exercise restraint.
The measure of institutional maturity is not how frequently the President intervenes to correct institutions. It is how rarely such intervention becomes necessary.
The Osun episode leaves Nigeria with a paradox worth contemplating. Presidential intervention may sometimes protect institutional integrity. But too much of it will eventually destroy institutional independence. The challenge is knowing where one ends and the other begins. And in a democracy that seeks institutions stronger than personalities, that line must never be left to the discretion of the President alone.
Dr Lemmy Ughegbe, FIMC, CMC
Email: lemmyughegbeofficial@gmail.com
WhatsApp ONLY: +2348069716645
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