PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday received briefings from the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, and the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqha Rabe Darma, at the State House, Abuja.
News Point Nigeria reports that the meeting, which focused on the management and disposal of houses seized nationwide by the anti-graft agency under rules of transparency and accountability, was the first publicly disclosed engagement between Tinubu and Olukoyede since the President overruled the EFCC earlier this month over the handling of a court order freezing Osun State Government accounts shortly before the governorship election.
The State House media office disclosed the details of Tuesday’s meeting in a statement and photo release issued late in the day.
The release stated: “Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Olanipekun Ola Olukoyede, and Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqha Rabe Darma, met with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the management and disposal of seized houses nationwide, under the rules of transparency and Accountability at the State House, Abuja. Tuesday, August 18, 2026.”
The meeting comes against the backdrop of the controversy that trailed the EFCC’s handling of a court order freezing the accounts of the Osun State Government, which President Tinubu publicly directed the commission to return to court and vacate.
The EFCC had, on August 5, 2026, obtained a court order freezing Osun State Government accounts, citing an investigation into the alleged fraudulent handling of ecology funds, intervention funds and the state’s Federation Account Allocation Committee allocations amounting to about N11 billion.
The Osun State Government, however, challenged the freeze in a suit filed the same day at the Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking to nullify the order and claiming N2 billion in exemplary damages.
The state government also accused the commission of carrying out what it described as an unproven “witch-hunt” against Osun State since March.
Two days after the court order, President Tinubu, in a statement personally signed by him, directed the EFCC to return to court and vacate the freeze order.
The President said he was “deeply embarrassed not by the EFCC’s exercise of its mandate backed by a court order, but by the timing of the agency’s action,” which came just 10 days before the August 15 governorship election in Osun State.
Tinubu said he had deliberately avoided interfering in the operational activities of the EFCC in the past but could not allow any federal institution to create the impression that it was being deployed to influence the outcome of an election.
Governor Ademola Adeleke subsequently went on to win re-election in the August 15 governorship poll.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics shortly after his victory was announced, Adeleke disclosed that he had directed the state’s Attorney General to withdraw the suit against the EFCC, crediting President Tinubu’s intervention for resolving the matter.
“I’m putting them behind. What else do I want? I have instructed my Attorney General to drop it. Mr President has done well. He called me. What more do I want?” Adeleke said.
Tuesday’s meeting between the President, the EFCC chairman and the Minister of Housing and Urban Development came three days after Adeleke’s re-election and the withdrawal of the Osun State Government’s suit against the anti-graft agency.