A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the final forfeiture of $13 million linked to a popular business woman, Aisha Achimugu to the Federal Government, after ruling that the funds were proceeds of unlawful activities.
The order was granted by Justice Emeka Nwite following an application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC), which argued that the funds could not be traced to any legitimate business activity and were reasonably suspected to have been obtained through fraud.
The court held that Achimugu and her company, Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd, failed to provide credible and verifiable evidence to justify the source of the money, noting that neither the alleged donors nor any documentation of legitimate transactions were presented to substantiate their claims.
In his ruling on Wednesday, Justice Nwite emphasized that the burden of proving lawful ownership of the funds rested squarely on the applicant, stressing that the explanations offered fell short of displacing the EFCC’s findings and investigative evidence.
The judge also dismissed assertions that the $13 million represented gifts, pointing out that Achimugu did not appear before the court to defend the claim, while no individual purported to have made such donations was called to testify.
He further observed that the company failed to demonstrate any genuine business operations capable of generating such funds, citing the absence of records showing payments from clients, executed contracts, or any commercial activity tied to the inflow.
The forfeiture order followed an earlier interim ruling delivered on August 22, 2025, in which the court directed the anti-graft agency to publish a notice in a national daily inviting interested parties to show cause within 14 days why the funds should not be permanently forfeited.
In an affidavit filed before the court, EFCC investigator Usman Aliyu disclosed that the commission acted on intelligence indicating that the funds were deployed to acquire oil assets from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission without due process.
Aliyu alleged that the money used to pay signature bonuses for oil prospecting licences PPL 302 and PPL 3007 originated from transfers linked to public funds.
He added that there were no legitimate contractual or business relationships between Oceangate and the contractors involved in the transactions.
The investigator described the firm as a shell entity allegedly used to warehouse petroleum assets acquired with suspected illicit proceeds, asserting that its structure and operations were designed to conceal the true origin of the funds.
Justice Nwite, agreeing with the EFCC’s position, held that the totality of the evidence before the court established that the $13 million constituted proceeds of unlawful activity, and consequently ordered its final forfeiture to the Federal Government.
