By Damilare Adenola, ESQ
Can the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) validly direct a bank to freeze or place a Post No Debit (PND) on an account without a prior court order? The question resurfaced sharply in August 2026 when the EFCC directed First Bank to place a PND on the Osun State Government’s statutory allocation account. Governor Ademola Adeleke publicly accused the Commission of acting without judicial sanction and instructed the state’s Attorney-General to challenge the freeze before the Federal High Court, Osogbo. The EFCC’s defence rests on a claimed 72-hour administrative freeze power under Section 34 of the EFCC Act and Section 7(6) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, supported by UBA Plc v. A-G Benue State & Ors (2022) LPELR-58695(CA). Yet months earlier, the Court of Appeal delivered NPG Event, Gardens & Parks Ltd v. Zenith Bank Plc (2025) LPELR-82641(CA), a forceful and largely unqualified restatement that no freeze may lawfully precede a court order. This article examines both lines of authority against the Osun controversy.
Section 44(1) of the 1999 Constitution protects property from compulsory deprivation except in accordance with law; Section 44(2)(k) permits a law enforcement agency to temporarily take possession of property for investigation. Section 34 of the EFCC Act operationalises this for bank accounts, requiring the Chairman to “apply to the Court Ex-parte for power to issue an order… as specified in Form B of the Schedule” before any freeze directive is sent to a bank. Separately, Section 7(6) of the Money Laundering Act permits the EFCC or its authorised representatives to “place a stop order not exceeding 72 hours” on a suspicious account without a prior court order, provided judicial backing is sought to extend it further.
NPG Event arose from a PND placed on the appellant’s account in 2016, sustained for roughly six months without any court order. The trial court had upheld the freeze under Sections 7 and 34(4)(b) of the EFCC Act and Section 44(2)(k) of the Constitution. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the trial court erred by ignoring Section 34(1), which mandates an ex parte application before any such order reaches a bank. Delivering the lead judgement, Onwosi, J.C.A. held that the “temporary possession” permitted under Section 44(2) “must be done in accordance with the process stipulated by law,” adding pointedly that “we are under a Democratic Rule and not a Military Rule where the rule of impunity reigns.”
The Court also fixed liability on the bank itself: “the bank that obeys the instruction of law enforcement agencies to freeze a customer’s bank account without an order of court can be liable jointly and severally” and is “estopped from feigning ignorance” as to whether a court order exists. The presumption of regularity under Section 168(1) of the Evidence Act was rejected as a defence. This follows NPG Farms (Nig) Ltd v. Zenith Bank Plc (2022) LPELR-57548(CA) and aligns with GTB Plc v. Adedamola (2019) 5 NWLR (Pt. 1664) 30, GTB v. Joshua (2021) LPELR-53173(CA), Polaris Bank Ltd v. Yayamu Global Services Ltd & Anor (2022) LPELR-57376, Olagunju v. EFCC (2019) LPELR-48461(CA), EFCC v. Global Formwork (Nig.) Ltd & Ors (2020) LPELR-51697(CA), and Opara-Henry v. Access Bank Plc (2022) LPELR-59775(CA). None of these decisions, however, engage the Money Laundering Act’s 72-hour mechanism — NPG Event was argued purely on the EFCC Act and Section 44.
UBA Plc v. A-G Benue State & Ors overturned a Federal High Court judgement restraining the EFCC from freezing Benue State’s accounts without a court order and set aside a N50 million damages award. The court held the EFCC may place any account, including a state government’s, on PND for 72 hours without prior court order, provided judicial ratification is sought to extend it. United Bank for Africa Plc v. Eriba Jude-Bela Eje & Ors (2022) LPELR-57973(CA) reached the same conclusion: once 72 hours expire without a court order, “the stop order or freezing the account lapses and the financial institution is obliged to unfreeze the account.”
These lines are not strictly contradictory: they arise under different statutes addressing different mechanisms, an open-ended EFCC Act freeze versus a self-terminating Money Laundering Act stop order. On that reading, a brief provisional freeze followed promptly by a court application is defensible; an unratified freeze beyond 72 hours is not. Yet NPG Event‘s reasoning is explicitly constitutional, treating any pre-authorisation restriction on property as suspect, which sits uneasily with a statute permitting even a short unauthorised freeze, a tension neither Benue nor Eriba Jude-Bela Eje confronted.
For Osun, the EFCC’s letter invokes the 72-hour route. If judicial backing follows within that window, the Commission’s conduct arguably survives under Benue. If it does not, continued enforcement replicates the open-ended pattern condemned in NPG Event, exposing First Bank to joint liability it can no longer disclaim through ignorance.
The EFCC’s 72-hour defence has genuine, unreversed appellate backing, but it is narrower and more conditional than public statements suggest and stands in real tension with the constitutionally-grounded requirement of prior judicial sanction in NPG Event. Until the Supreme Court or a differently constituted panel resolves this directly, both regulators and litigants proceed on genuinely contested ground.
Damilare Adenola is a dispute resolution legal practitioner and the Managing Partner at Damilare Adenola & Co. (DACO) Africa. Email: olanreadenola@gmail.com . Phone: +234 903 750 6418.