The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has disclosed that it is currently investigating about 18 state governments over alleged mismanagement of public funds as part of its efforts to safeguard public resources and strengthen accountability across the country.
The commission said the ongoing investigations demonstrate that its enforcement actions are not targeted at any particular state but are part of a broader nationwide campaign against financial misconduct in public institutions.
Speaking during an interview on Arise Television on Thursday, the EFCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed that investigations were ongoing in about 18 states, although he declined to identify them.
“Like we said in the statement, there are about 18 other states that we have ongoing investigations,” Uwujaren said.
He explained that the commission was withholding the identities of the affected states to avoid compromising ongoing investigations.
“I don’t want to start mentioning those states by name now,” he said.
Responding to calls for the names of the states to be made public, Uwujaren maintained that confidentiality 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 added.
The EFCC spokesman said the recent restriction placed on one of the Osun State Government’s statutory accounts was one of several interventions aimed at preventing the diversion of public funds.
According to him, similar actions had been taken in the past where intelligence suggested suspicious movement of government funds.
He cited the commission’s intervention in Edo State before the emergence of Governor Monday Okpebholo, saying the action helped preserve government resources.
“Before the Edo State election and 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 operations were guided strictly by the law and not influenced by politics.
“So this is not targeted at any particular government. We are simply doing our work under the law,” he said.
On why a similar action was not taken during the Ekiti governorship election, the EFCC spokesman said the circumstances were different and based on intelligence available 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.
Clarifying the action against Osun State, Uwujaren said only one statutory account had been temporarily restricted, while the state government retained access to its other accounts.
“We only targeted one statutory account, which is under temporary restriction. It does not stop the government from operating other accounts that they have,” he explained.
He added that the commission has a 72-hour window under the law to obtain a court order to either sustain or lift the restriction.
“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, within which we either obtain a court order to continue to freeze it or lift the restriction,” he said.
Uwujaren noted that the Osun investigation did not begin with the recent restriction of the account, revealing that the probe had been ongoing since March 2026 and that several government officials had already been questioned.
“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 the course of this investigation. So it didn’t just begin now,” he said.
The disclosure comes amid growing public attention on the EFCC’s efforts to strengthen financial accountability and prevent the diversion of public funds by state governments across the country.