A former Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke has asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to order the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to retrieve her seized assets from their buyers.
Alison-Madueke made this request through an amended application filed on her behalf by her lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), before Justice Inyang Ekwo.
She told the court that the EFCC had, pursuant to a notice it issued in 2023, and acting in breach of her fundamental right to fair hearing, commenced a public sale by auction, assets linked to her.
According to the ex-petroleum minister, the anti-graft agency based its decision to sell off the properties on final forfeiture orders it obtained from various courts in the country.
She argued that the auction breached her rights as she was not given a fair hearing before judgment was passed.
The Applicant accused the anti-graft agency of obtaining forfeiture orders against her through misrepresentations and concealment of facts.
Meanwhile, the EFCC, in response to the suit, filed a counter-affidavit to challenge its competence.
In the affidavit deposed to by one of its detectives, Oyakhilome Ekienabor, the anti-graft agency told the court that following extensive investigations into activities of the Applicant while she was a public servant, criminal proceedings were initiated against her in various courts.
The commission told the court that before the assets were deemed to have been forfeited, it made newspaper publications inviting any person interested in the properties to show cause.”
“The final forfeiture orders pursuant to which the sale of the properties was conducted, are still in force and have not been set aside. The forfeited properties were disposed of in accordance with the due process of law,” EFCC added.
It will be recalled that the former minister had earlier filed a N100billion defamation suit against the EFCC which, she alleged, had authored and sponsored several publications that portrayed her as a treasury looter.
In the suit marked: CV/6273/2023, she insisted that the said defamatory publications brought her into “public ridicule, odium, contempt, derision and obloquy.”
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