Nigeria’s former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to stop the country’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), from selling off properties seized from her.
At a hearing on Monday, Justice Abubakar Umar adjourned the case until October 6, giving Diezani time to respond to the EFCC’s legal submissions. The former minister, who is currently not in Nigeria, is being represented in court by a legal team led by Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Prof. Mike Ozekhome.
In her court filing, Diezani claimed that the EFCC had begun auctioning off her properties without properly notifying her or giving her the chance to defend herself. She argued that the sales violated her constitutional right to a fair hearing, especially since she has not been convicted of any crime in Nigeria.
She also accused the EFCC of misleading the courts by concealing important facts while applying for final forfeiture orders legal rulings that allowed the government to permanently seize her assets. According to her, those rulings were made by courts without jurisdiction and without serving her with any legal documents related to the cases.
“The courts were misled into making the final orders based on suppression or non-disclosure of material facts,” her court filing claimed.
The former minister said that although the EFCC claimed the properties were proceeds of crime, no court has declared her guilty of any unlawful activity.
“Only a court of law can declare an act to be illegal. Mere allegations by the EFCC are not enough,” she added.
Diezani also told the court that she has three related cases pending in Lagos courts, arguing that the sale of her properties should be paused until those legal challenges are resolved.
The EFCC, in response, defended its actions. In a counter-affidavit filed by one of its investigators, the agency said it had properly obtained court orders before auctioning the properties. It pointed to previous criminal charges filed against Diezani in 2017 and 2018 as the basis for those seizures.
The EFCC maintained that notices were published in newspapers, inviting anyone with an interest in the properties to come forward before the court issued the forfeiture orders.
“The properties were disposed of according to due process, based on final court orders that have not been overturned,” the EFCC said.
This legal battle is one of several involving Diezani, who also filed a ₦100 billion defamation suit against the EFCC. She claims the agency damaged her reputation by publishing what she described as false and damaging reports portraying her as a “treasury looter.”
The court is expected to resume hearing the case in October.