Diezani seeks to stop auction of seized assets

A former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, yesterday asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to vacate an order granted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for final forfeiture of her seized assets.  The application was sequel to a notice by the EFCC for the sale of the assets after it obtained various […]

A former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, yesterday asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to vacate an order granted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for final forfeiture of her seized assets. 

The application was sequel to a notice by the EFCC for the sale of the assets after it obtained various court orders.

In an originating summon by Diezani’s counsel, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), dated January 9, 2023, she said she was not given fair hearing as contained in Section 36(1) of the Nigerian Constitution, 1999 in the grant of the orders for the forfeiture of the assets.

She said the various orders were made without jurisdiction, submitting that they “ought to be set aside ex debito justitiae.”

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“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,” she said.

But the EFCC, through an affidavit deposed to by a detective, Rufai Zaki, asked the court to dismiss her application.