Justice Abubakar Umar will, on October 6, hear a suit filed by former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, to stop the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from selling off all her seized properties.

The matter before the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja was adjourned to the new date to enable the former minister, who was represented by Mr. Godwin Iyibor, to respond to processes the anti-graft agency served on her.

In the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/21/2023, filed through a team of lawyers led by Prof. Mike Ozekhome (SAN), Mrs. Alison-Madueke prayed the court to order the EFCC to retrieve properties already sold to natural or corporate persons.

She told the court that the EFCC, acting in breach of her fundamental right to fair hearing, commenced a public auction of assets linked to her pursuant to a notice issued in 2023.

She insisted the commission based its decision to sell off the properties on final forfeiture orders obtained from various courts in the country.

Arguing further, she told the court that despite the EFCC’s claim that final orders of forfeiture were granted against her seized properties, she was neither served with any charge and proof of evidence in respect of any criminal proceeding, nor summons relating to any matter pending before any court.

Specifically, she accused the anti-graft agency of obtaining forfeiture orders against her through misrepresentations and concealment of facts.

“In many cases where the final forfeiture orders were made against properties affecting the Applicant’s interest, the courts were misled into making the orders based on suppression or non-disclosure of material facts.”

She added that the several applications upon which the courts made the final orders of forfeiture were obtained upon gross misstatements, misrepresentations, and suppression of material facts and that the court has the power to set aside such orders ex debito justitiae, as a void order is as good as if it were never made.

She argued that the said forfeiture orders were made by courts that lacked the requisite jurisdiction, and without recourse to her constitutional right to fair hearing.

Insisting she was never served with relevant court processes in all the proceedings that led to the orders, the applicant said the EFCC was aware that she was not within the shores of Nigeria at all material times, having left to seek medical treatment since 2015.

“The Applicant did not have any access to newspapers circulating within Nigeria during this period as she was not in Nigeria at all material times relevant to this suit.”

She told the court that though EFCC alleged that the seized properties constituted proceeds of unlawful activities, “till date, the Applicant has not been convicted of any unlawful activities to warrant the forfeiture of her properties and assets.”

She further argued that the courts, in granting the final forfeiture orders in matters said to flow from criminal activity and which are criminal in nature, relied on the civil standard of preponderance of evidence rather than the stricter proof required in criminal proceedings.