The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has revealed that it is investigating about 18 states over alleged mismanagement of public funds.
The commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Wilson Uwujaren, disclosed this during an interview on Arise Television on Thursday but declined to identify the states involved.
Speaking on the EFCC’s decision to place a temporary restriction on an Osun State Government account, Uwujaren explained that the action was part of a broader anti-corruption effort involving several state governments.
Responding to questions on whether other states were also under investigation, he confirmed: “Like we said in the statement, there are about 18 other states that we have ongoing investigations.”
When asked to name the affected states, Uwujaren refused, saying: “I don’t want to start mentioning those states by name now.”
As the interviewer argued that Nigerians deserved to know which states were under investigation, Uwujaren maintained that withholding the names was necessary to preserve the integrity of the investigations.
“Not running away per se, but not to jeopardise the investigation that is currently ongoing,” he said.
He added that the commission had previously taken similar action in Edo State before Governor Monday Okpebholo assumed office.
“Before, during the Edo State government, the Edo State election, before the coming of Governor Okpebholo, EFCC also took actions to restrict the account of that state government when we saw that funds were being moved to suspicious accounts.
“And we were able to preserve $12 billion for them. That is why the current government was able to come on board and have resources to work,” he said.
Uwujaren stressed that the commission’s actions were based solely on its legal mandate.
“So this is not targeted at any particular government. We are simply doing our work under the law,” he said.
Addressing questions about why the EFCC did not take similar measures during the Ekiti State election, he said the circumstances were different and based on intelligence available only to the commission.
“If you talk about what happened in Ekiti, we didn’t have any reason to intervene the way we are intervening now. And you don’t have access to the information that we have access to,” he said.
He also clarified that only one statutory account belonging to the Osun State Government had been temporarily restricted, while other government accounts remained operational.
“We only targeted one statutory account, which is restricted, temporary restriction on that account. And it does not stop the government from operating other accounts that they have. It’s only one account that is frozen for now,” he said.
Uwujaren explained that the EFCC has a 72-hour period to either obtain a court order extending the restriction or lift it.
“We have a 72 hours window to obtain a court order, which the commission is at liberty to do.
“We have not exhausted that window, 72 hours, within which we either obtain a court order to continue to freeze it or lift the restriction on the other hand,” he said.
Reacting to the Osun State Government’s plan to challenge the restriction in court, Uwujaren said the state was entitled to seek legal redress.
“It’s within their right to take that decision today. If we think they are right to take that decision, we are also working on what we should do as an agency,” he said.
He cited Section 34 of the EFCC Act and Section 7(6) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2022 as the legal basis for temporarily restricting suspicious accounts.
“Absolutely. Those two provisions give us the power to place temporary restrictions on any account, not only limited to state government, on any account that we suspect that there are suspicious activities on those accounts.
“And we have 72 hours between which to produce a court order to continue to restrict those accounts or lift the restriction,” he said.
Uwujaren further stated that the Osun investigation began in March and was not triggered by recent events.
“But as it is now, I want to restate the fact that the Osun State case didn’t start today. It started way back in March. And a number of officials from that state have been interviewed in course of this investigation. So it didn’t just begin now,” he said.
