Court grants Diezani permission to amend suit challenging forfeiture order

A federal high court in Abuja has granted Diezani Alison-Madueke, former minister of petroleum, permission to amend her suit challenging an order obtained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for final forfeiture of her seized assets.

Inyang Ekwo granted the request on Monday after the motion was moved by Diezani’s lawyer, Godwin Inyinbor.

Divine Oguru, EFCC counsel, did not raise any objection to the ex-minister’s plea to amend her suit.

Ekwo gave Diezani five days to file and serve the amended processes and granted EFCC 14 days from the date of service to respond.

The matter was then adjourned until March 17 for further mention.

BACKGROUND

The EFCC issued a notice of its plan to conduct a public sale of all assets seized from Diezani beginning on January 9, 2023.

In the motion marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/21/2023, dated and filed January 6, Diezani through her lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, argued that all the orders of forfeiture obtained by the EFCC were made without jurisdiction of the courts and ought to be set aside as a matter of justice.

The former minister said she was not given fair hearing, notified about the proceedings leading to the orders, or served with the court processes.

“The various court orders issued in favour of the respondent and upon which the respondent issued the public notice to conduct a public sale of items contained in the public notice, most of which court the interest of the applicant, were issued in breach of the applicant’s right to fair hearing as guaranteed by Section 36 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, as altered, and other similar constitutional provisions,” she said

“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 this honourable 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.

“The orders were made without recourse to the constitutional right to fair hearing and right to property accorded the applicant by the constitution.

“The applicant was never served with the processes of court in all the proceedings that led to the order of final forfeiture.”

EFCC’S COUNTER AFFIDAVIT

However, in a counter affidavit, counsel to the EFCC, Rufai Zaki, described Deizani’s claims as “untrue”.

Zaki was a member of the team that investigated the case of alleged criminal conspiracy, official corruption and money laundering against the ex-minister and some other individuals.

He said investigations showed that Alison-Madueke was “involved in some acts of criminality”.

He said contrary to her deposition, most of the cases which led to the final forfeiture of the contested property “were action in rem, same were heard at various times and determined by this honourable court”.

He said the courts directed the commission to publish notices in various newspapers, inviting interested parties to explain why the said property should not be forfeited to the federal government before final orders were issued.

Zaki argued that one Nnamdi Awa-Kalu represented the ex-minister in one of the forfeiture applications.

The EFCC investigator added that the order of forfeiture Diezani is challenging was granted in 2017 and that the ex-minister did not appeal it.