The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has fixed October 6 to hear a suit filed by former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, to stop the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from selling off all the properties that were seized from her.
The court, presided over by Justice Abubakar Umar, adjourned the suit to enable the former minister to respond to processes the anti-graft agency served on her.
In the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/21/2023, which she filed through a team of lawyers led by Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, Alison-Madueke prayed the court to order the EFCC to retrieve from persons (natural or corporate) to whom it had sold off any of the properties.
Alison-Madueke informed the court that the EFCC had pursuant to a notice it issued in 2023, and acting in breach of her fundamental right to fair hearing, commenced a public sale by auction, assets that were linked to her.
The erstwhile petroleum minister said the anti-graft agency based its decision to sell off the properties on final forfeiture orders it obtained from various courts in the country.
The embattled former minister told the court that despite EFCC’s claim that final order of forfeiture was granted against her seized properties, she was neither served with any charge and proof of evidence in respect of any criminal proceeding, nor summons relating to any matter pending before any court.
The applicant accused the anti-graft agency of obtaining forfeiture orders against her, through misrepresentations and concealment of facts.
“In many cases, the final forfeiture orders were made against properties which affected the applicant’s interest, the courts were misled into making the final order of forfeiture against the applicant, based on suppression or non-disclosure of materials facts.
“The several applications upon which the courts made the final order of forfeiture against the applicant were obtained upon gross misstatements, misrepresentations, non-disclosure, concealment and suppression of material facts and thus court has the power to set aside same ex-debito justitiae, as a void order is as good as if it was never made at all,” she added.
She contended that the said forfeiture orders were made against her by courts that lacked the requisite jurisdiction, saying they were made without recourse to her constitutional right to fair hearing.
Insisting she was never served with relevant court processes in all the proceedings that led to the orders for final forfeiture of her assets, the applicant said the EFCC was aware that she was not within the shores of Nigeria at all material times as she left to seek medical treatment in 2015.
Meanwhile, the EFCC, in response to the suit, filed a counter-affidavit to challenge its competence.
In the affidavit that was deposed to by one of its detectives, Oyakhilome Ekienabor, the anti-graft agency told the court that following extensive investigations into activities of the applicant while she was a public servant, criminal proceedings were initiated against her in various courts.
It told the court that examples of such cases included a suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/208/2018, which was filed on November 2018, as well as another charge marked: HC/ADYL/56c/2017, filed on July 1, 2017, before a High Court in Adamawa State.
EFCC maintained that sale of properties that previously belonged to the former minister was conducted in execution of final forfeiture orders of Justice C.A. Obiozor of the Federal High made on July 9, 2019, as well as another order that was made by Justice I. N. Oweibo, on September 10, 2019.
The Commission told the court that before the assets were deemed to have been forfeited, it made newspaper publications inviting any person interested in the properties to show cause.
It will be recalled that the former minister had earlier filed a N100billion defamation suit against the EFCC which she alleged had authored and sponsored several publications that portrayed her as a treasury looter.
In the suit marked: CV/6273/2023, she insisted that the said defamatory publications brought her into “public ridicule, odium, contempt, derision and obloquy”.
