Court Approves Final Forfeiture of N3.4B, Assets Over Alleged NNPCL Scam

In response to claims of fraud at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the Federal High Court in Abuja issued an order on Tuesday for the ultimate confiscation of three properties and N3.4 billion in cash.

In a decision on a notice for final forfeiture of the assets filed by Martha Babatunde, the attorney for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Justice Joyce Abdulmalik approved the application.

The assets comprise a two-bedroom apartment at Block 2, Apartment Al, Block EFG, Osbourne Foreshore Il, Ikoyi, Lagos, and an incomplete six-bedroom semi-detached duplex with boys’ quarters at Plot 3168, Asokoro District, Abuja.

Salihu Nuhu is the owner of a restaurant building located in Plot 102, Cadastral Zone C09, Lokogoma District, Abuja.

N3,440,000,000.00 is the amount of money in the EFCC Recovery Account.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the money and the lost properties were allegedly the results of illegal activity from three large contracts that the NNPCL granted to three contractors.

The projects included the Benin Gas Plant Project, the Maiduguri Emergency Power Project (MEPP), and the Abuja Independent Power Project (Abuja IPP). Mr. Salihu Nuhu Jamari was allegedly in charge of these projects while he was the Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Gas and Power Investment Company Limited (NGPIC).

When the matter was summoned on Tuesday, Maryam Abba, who represented Mr. Jamari, the interested party, told the court that Jamari had complied with the court’s order to file an affidavit of non-contestation at the last postponed date.

Abba claims that Mr. Saliu Jamari himself filed and testified to the affidavit.

The motion for the ultimate forfeiture of the assets and funds was subsequently made by Babatunde.

According to her, the EFCC requested a final forfeiture order for the assets specified in the schedule in a motion dated March 17 and filed on the same day.

She stated that the motion included an 18-paragraph affidavit, eleven exhibits, and a written address.

She begged, “As our oral submission, we filed a written address urging this honorable court to grant our application, the motion, having been unopposed.”

According to the attorney, the court ordered the commission to publish this in accordance with an interim order given on February 25 and invited any interested parties to provide justification for why the final decision should not be made.

According to her, the instruction was followed and appeared in the Punch Newspaper on March 3.

According to Babatunde, there was no reason why the assets and money shouldn’t be given to the federal government permanently.

The attorney who appeared as an interested party on March 31 stated that Jamari had no issue to the assets’ final forfeiture to the Federal Government, according to Justice Abdulmalik’s ruling.

“As a result, I grant the Federal Government of Nigeria the order for final forfeiture of the properties and the funds attached to the motion,” she declared.

A group of EFCC attorneys led by Ekele Iheanacho, SAN, filed a move for the final seizure of the properties and the funds. The anti-graft agency provided six reasons why the motion should be approved.

Iheanacho argued that it was a non-conviction-based asset forfeiture process and that the court had the statutory authority to give the reliefs under Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offenses Act, 2006.

Abdullahi Aminu, an investigator with the commission, stated in his affidavit that a petition was received regarding an alleged case of conspiracy, kickbacks, bribery, and money laundering involving some of the employees and contractors of NNPCL, with Salihu Nuhu Jamari’s name appearing prominently.