A newly obtained court document has revealed that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission secured judicial authorisation to freeze two more Osun State Government bank accounts beyond the single First Bank account earlier confirmed by the anti-graft agency, deepening the controversy surrounding the timing of the action just days before the state’s governorship election.

According to the document, Justice Mohammed Umar granted an ex parte order authorising EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede, or any officer designated by him, to instruct the affected banks to place a freeze on the accounts listed in the schedule attached to the application.

The schedule identified three accounts belonging to the Osun State Government affected by the order: the Osun State Government Federal Allocation Account domiciled with First Bank, and two Osun State Joint Allocation Accounts domiciled with Zenith Bank. The judge ordered that the restriction on the accounts remain in place until the conclusion of the commission’s ongoing investigation.

Until this latest disclosure, only the First Bank account was publicly known to have been affected by the freeze order, a restriction the EFCC had earlier defended as necessary to preserve public funds following what it described as suspicious financial activity linked to an investigation into an alleged N11 billion in misappropriated Ecology Funds, Intervention Funds and FAAC allocations.

The revelation that two additional accounts, both domiciled with Zenith Bank, were also targeted adds fresh scrutiny to a saga that has already drawn presidential intervention.

President Bola Tinubu had directed the EFCC to lift the restriction on the Osun government’s account, describing the timing of the move, coming roughly ten days ahead of the August 15 governorship election, as inauspicious and capable of creating the impression that a federal agency was being deployed to interfere with the poll process.

It remains unclear whether the commission has since approached the court to formally lift the freeze orders on the accounts, including the two additional ones now confirmed by the document.

The development comes as the Osun State Government continues to maintain that the EFCC’s actions lack proper legal grounding, with the state’s Attorney-General previously arguing that the commission does not possess the constitutional authority to freeze the accounts of a sub-national government without following due legal process.

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