Nigeria’s President Tinubu Freezes Osun LG Funds, Repeating a Move He Once Opposed as Lagos Governor

The Nigerian Federal Government under President Bola Tinubu has reportedly frozen local government (LG) allocations to Osun State for four consecutive months, starting in March 2025.  This freeze is tied to a bitter power struggle between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led state government and the All Progressives Congress (APC)-backed local government chairmen.

Reports stated that the Federal Government, through the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, halted the statutory disbursement of LG funds to Osun shortly after the PDP-led government of Governor Ademola Adeleke conducted local government elections earlier this year, elections that the APC rejected.

The impasse has left Osun’s LGs without federal funding for March, April, May, and likely June, raising concerns over service delivery and local governance in the state. Ironically, the move mirrors a controversial policy that Tinubu once fought against as Lagos State governor during the Obasanjo administration.

In the early 2000s, Tinubu took the federal government to court after then-President Olusegun Obasanjo withheld allocations to Lagos’ newly created local council development areas. The Supreme Court eventually ruled in Tinubu’s favour, affirming states’ constitutional rights over LG administration.

Tinubu’s federal government is accused of using state instruments to impose APC-aligned chairmen on Osun State’s local governments by starving the PDP-led administration of critical funds.

Sources told SaharaReporters that the Accountant General’s office moved to withhold LG allocations following Adeleke’s controversial local government elections in February 2025. The APC has insisted that the previously sacked chairmen appointed during former Governor Gboyega Oyetola’s tenure remain the rightful officeholders.

In a bid to bypass the state government, federal authorities reportedly encouraged the APC-backed chairmen to open independent local government accounts through the Osogbo branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The Osun State Government, upon discovering the move, intervened by writing to the Accountant General’s office in protest, temporarily halting the federal plan.

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The source also noted that federal authorities attempted to use the new director at the CBN’s Osogbo branch to facilitate the process. However, procedural hurdles—including the absence of required state-level signatures—complicated the operation.

While the APC argues that the court has reinstated its chairman, the PDP insists that the President lacks the constitutional authority to withhold statutory allocations, regardless of political disputes.

Yet, according to sources, federal agencies continue to coordinate with APC chairmen in Osun, gathering signatures and initiating the process of account openings—actions seen by many as circumventing the authority of the duly elected state government.

Tinubu-led administration now faces accusations of deploying federal institutions to favour his party in a state governed by the opposition—an act some say undermines the principles he once championed.

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Oluwasegun Sanusi

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