It was a stunning public rebuke.

This week, the fragility of Nigeria’s democratic institutions came into sharp focus. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) exercised its sweeping powers by freezing the Osun State Government’s accounts over alleged financial misconduct. There has been no judicial determination of wrongdoing. Within hours, however, President Bola Tinubu ordered the anti-corruption agency to reverse itself and unfreeze the accounts. His explanation was simple: he was “deeply embarrassed.”

The episode has reignited concerns about regulatory capture and what it means for Nigeria’s democracy. It is not a choice between the “white devil” and the “black devil.” Rather, it exposes a deeper problem: institutions that are either vulnerable to political influence or capable of exercising enormous powers without sufficient institutional safeguards.

The political context makes the incident impossible to ignore. Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke is seeking re-election amid an intense contest with the ruling party, which is determined to reclaim a state it lost nearly four years ago. Against that backdrop, the EFCC’s decision to freeze the state’s accounts just days before the election inevitably attracted suspicion.

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President Tinubu appeared to recognise exactly that. Explaining his intervention, he said, “I feel deeply embarrassed… by the timing of the agency’s action.”

Nigeria’s greatest governance challenge is not the absence of regulators. It is the gradual erosion of their independence and, at times, the abuse of the extensive powers that Parliament has entrusted to them. Agencies established to regulate markets, combat corruption or oversee public services increasingly operate under the shadow of the Executive, whether through direct influence or the public perception of it.

That is why the President’s justification deserves closer examination.

Tinubu argued that he intervened to preserve “public confidence and the integrity, credibility, and fairness of our democratic process.” Yet his public reversal of the EFCC has inadvertently reinforced another damaging perception: that regulatory decisions in Nigeria can ultimately be shaped by political calculations. For investors, businesses and citizens alike, institutional certainty matters as much as the law itself.

This is not to dismiss legitimate questions about the EFCC’s conduct. Freezing a state government’s accounts barely a week before a governorship election deserves careful scrutiny, particularly if there is any basis for believing that the Commission’s chairman, Ola Olukoyede, was acting in a manner that could benefit the ruling party. Whether or not that perception is justified, it now exists in the public domain.

The President himself acknowledged the danger.

“Osun State is only a few days away from its gubernatorial election. Therefore, nothing ought to be done to give an impression that the EFCC or indeed any other agency of the federal government is being used to interfere with the election.”

That statement should become more than an explanation for one intervention. It should become the starting point for institutional reform.

This is history repeating itself as tragedy. President Tinubu knows this playbook intimately; during his tenure as Governor of Lagos State, he famously weathered the heavy hand of federal power weaponised against his administration. To watch his government now mirror those very tactics is like watching a former victim inherit the whip. Will Tinubu break that cycle rather than repeat it?

Nigeria’s Constitution devotes enormous attention to distributing political power among the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, and between the federal and state governments. It pays considerably less attention to designing institutions capable of remaining independent regardless of who occupies political office.

The real test of institutional strength lies not in constitutional theory but in governance structures: who appoints regulators, how they can be removed, how they are funded, and whether their governing boards possess genuine independence. Those questions affect anti-corruption agencies, financial regulators, electoral bodies and virtually every institution expected to operate above politics.

The EFCC itself illustrates the problem.

Today, Nigerians know the Commission’s chairman, but few know who sits on its Board. Section 2 of the EFCC Act 2004 provides for representatives from the Central Bank of Nigeria; the Ministries of Justice, Finance and Foreign Affairs; the DSS; NIA; Police; Customs; Immigration; NDLEA; CAC; SEC; NDIC; NAICOM; NIPOST; NCC; and only four eminent Nigerians from outside government.

Who are those independent members? What qualifications do they bring? How were they selected? Few Nigerians can answer those questions.

From a corporate governance perspective, effective boards are expected to include a substantial proportion of genuinely independent directors capable of exercising objective oversight. The EFCC Board, however, is overwhelmingly populated by representatives of Executive agencies. That composition risks creating an institution characterised more by inter-agency coordination than by independent governance.

Institutional decline rarely begins with operational failure. More often, it begins quietly, at the boardroom table, where oversight weakens long before the public notices the consequences.

Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of anti-corruption laws. It has enacted modern legislation against financial crime, procurement abuse, money laundering and illicit enrichment. The country’s recurring challenge has never been the laws themselves. It has been building institutions strong enough to enforce them consistently, independently and beyond the reach of politics.

President Tinubu may have been “deeply embarrassed” by the EFCC’s timing. The greater embarrassment would be allowing Nigeria’s institutions to remain so politically vulnerable that every controversial decision is judged less by the law than by the politics surrounding it. That is a leash no serious democracy should ever place on its regulators.

Adeola Akinremi is a public policy advisor, strategic communications expert, and the founder and CEO of Hintells, an AI-powered intelligence platform serving businesses and African diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. He has extensive multilateral experience advising on governance, economic and policy reforms across global markets and can be reached at: [email protected]