Abuja: The Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday made an order of final forfeiture of three properties and N3.4 billion in cash linked to allegations of fraud perpetrated at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
Justice Joyce Abdulmalik ruled on a motion for final forfeiture of the assets. The motion was brought by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)’s lawyer, Martha Babatunde. The judge granted the request.
The properties include an incomplete six-bedroom semi-detached duplex with boys’ quarters at Plot 3168, Asokoro District, Abuja, and a two-bedroom flat at Block 2, Apartment Al, Block EFG, Osborne Foreshore I, Ikoyi, Lagos.
It also includes a restaurant building at Plot 102, Cadastral Zone C09, Lokogoma District, Abuja, which is all in the name of Salihu Nuhu.
The forfeited cash, amounting to N3,440,000,000.00, is currently held in the EFCC Recovery Account.
The authorities described the forfeited properties and funds as proceeds of unlawful activities tied to three major projects awarded by NNPCL to contractors.
The projects included the Maiduguri Emergency Power Project (MEPP), the Abuja Independent Power Project (Abuja IPP), and the Benin Gas Plant Project, in which Mr Salihu Nuhu Jamari allegedly maintained significant influence and control while serving as Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Gas and Power Investment Company Limited (NGPIC).
When the case was called on Tuesday, Maryam Abba, who appeared for the interested party (Mr Jamari), informed the court that, at the last adjourned date, the court had instructed that an affidavit of non-contestation be filed, and that Jamari had complied.
Abba explained that Mr Saliu Jamari filed and deposed to the affidavit himself.
Babatunde then moved the motion for final forfeiture of the properties and the money.
She said the EFCC, in the motion dated March 17 and filed on the same date, sought a final forfeiture order of the assets listed in the schedule.
She explained that an 18-paragraph affidavit and 11 exhibits were attached to the motion. A written address was also included.
“We filed a written address as our oral submission,” she said. She urged the court to grant the application, since the motion was unopposed.
The lawyer said the court granted an interim order on Feb. 25. It directed the commission to publish an invitation to any interested party to show cause why the final order should not be made.
She said they complied with the order and published it in Punch Newspaper on March 3.
Babatunde said no party had shown cause to prevent the permanent forfeiture of the properties and funds to the Federal Government.
Ruling, Justice Abdulmalik observed that the lawyer, who appeared as an interested party on March 31, said Jamari had no objection to the final forfeiture of the assets to the Federal Government.
“Consequently, I grant the order for final forfeiture of the properties and the funds attached to the motion to the Federal Government of Nigeria,” she ruled.
In the motion for final forfeiture, a team of EFCC lawyers, led by Ekele Iheanacho, SAN, presented their arguments. The anti-graft agency listed six grounds for granting their application.
Iheanacho, who submitted that the court has the statutory powers under Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006, to grant the reliefs, said it was a non-conviction-based asset forfeiture proceeding.
In the affidavit deposed to by an investigator with the commission, Abdullahi Aminu, he stated that a petition was received regarding an alleged conspiracy, kickbacks, bribery, and money laundering involving some staff and contractors of NNPCL, in which the name of one Salihu Nuhu Jamari featured prominently.
