Asset Forfeiture: Court Hears Diezani’s Suit Against EFCC October 23

A Federal High Court, Abuja has fixed October 23, 2023, for hearing a suit filed by former minister of petroleum resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, challenging the order obtained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the final forfeiture of her seized assets.

Justice Inyang Ekwo fixed the date yesterday after Alison-Madueke’s lawyer, Benson Igbanoi, and EFCC’s counsel, M.D. Baraya, regularised their processes in the suit.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the anti-corruption agency had planned to conduct public sale of all the assets seized for being proceeds of crime as ordered by courts to be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government

The auctioning exercise, conducted on the seized assets believed to include Diezani’s property, started on Janaury 9.

The immediate-past chairman of EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, had recently revealed that $153 million and over 80 property had been recovered from Alison-Madueke.

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She was alleged to have escaped to the United Kingdom and remained there after her exit from public office as the petroleum minister, an office she held between 2010 and 2015 under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

But the ex-minister, in her suit, sought an order extending the time within which to seek leave to apply to the court for an order to set aside the EFCC’s public notice issued to conduct public sale on her property.

In the motion marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/21/2023 dated and filed on Jan. 6 by her lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, the former minister sought five orders from the court.

While Alison-Madueke is the applicant, the EFCC is the sole respondent in the suit.

The former minister, who argued that the various orders were made without jurisdiction, said these “ought to be set aside ex debito justitiae.”

She said she was not given fair hearing in all the proceedings leading to the orders. But the EFCC, in a counter affidavit deposed to by Rufai Zaki, a detective with the commission, urged the court to dismiss her application.