₦airaland Forum

The Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday granted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission an interim forfeiture order for N30.7m allegedly linked to fraudulent activities involving officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.

Justice Emeka Nwite, ruling on an ex parte application filed by the EFCC, held that the commission had placed sufficient material before the court to justify the temporary forfeiture of the funds to the Federal Government.

The judge ordered that the forfeiture notice be published in a national newspaper, giving interested parties 14 days to “show cause why the funds should not be permanently forfeited.”

The matter was adjourned until January 22 for the EFCC to file a compliance report on the publication.

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In a supporting affidavit, the EFCC said the funds were currently lodged in its Recovery Account with United Bank for Africa, with account number 9058700029, under a manager’s cheque name: M/C Draft Outstanding Account, pending forfeiture to the Federal Government.

The anti-graft agency told the court that the funds were discovered during investigations into alleged fraudulent activities involving some high-profile officials of the NNPC, as well as other criminal petitions received by the commission.

“In the cause of investigation and analysing some of the documents received from the bank, the name of Mr Adamu Yakubu, a Bureau De Change operator, featured prominently,” the EFCC said.

“On September 2, 2025, Mr Yakubu, whose name featured in the cause of investigation, was invited and he volunteered his statement.

“Mr Yakubu submitted a ledger to the commission evidencing records of his transactions wherein the details of customers and the amount of dollars sold by them are recorded.”

The EFCC said analysis of the ledger revealed that over N4bn was transferred to the accounts of different individuals and companies on the instruction of Mr Ibrahim Sani, a staff member of the Federal Inland Revenue Service.

“Upon analysing the entries in the ledger submitted by Mr Yakubu, it was revealed that over N4,000,000,000.00 (Four Billion Naira) was transferred to the accounts of different individuals and companies on the instruction of one Mr Ibrahim Sani,” the commission stated.

“It was discovered that the balance of N30.7m sought to be forfeited was still in possession of Yakubu from the funds which he claimed was given to him by Mr Ibrahim Sani.”

The EFCC further disclosed that on September 15, 2025, Sani was invited for questioning.

“Mr Ibrahim Sani gave statement on how he had been using Yakubu, the BDC operator, to be sending monies to different individuals and companies.

“Mr Ibrahim equally confirmed how he usually deposited huge amounts of money (dollars) with Mr Yakubu, who in turn sent the naira equivalent to individuals and companies’ accounts provided by him.”

According to the commission, Sani admitted he neither verified nor ascertained the source of the funds.

“Mr Ibrahim neither ascertained nor verified the source of these monies, which he has been depositing with Mr Yakubu for onward transfer to other people, which are reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities,” the EFCC said.

However, the commission added that Sani denied ownership of the N30.7m found in Yakubu’s account at the time of investigation.

Both Yakubu and Sani denied ownership of the funds.

The EFCC maintained that the money constituted “proceeds of unlawful activities,” relying on the provisions of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006, to seek the interim forfeiture order.

Under Nigeria’s asset recovery framework, interim forfeiture orders allow law enforcement agencies to preserve suspected proceeds of crime while affected parties are given the opportunity to challenge the forfeiture before it becomes final.