The Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday approved the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s, EFCC, request for an interim forfeiture of N30.7 million, linked to alleged fraudulent activities involving officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL.
Justice Emeka Nwite, ruling on an ex-parte application filed by the EFCC, held that the commission had demonstrated sufficient grounds to justify temporarily transferring the funds to the Federal Government.
The judge directed that the order be published in a national newspaper, giving any interested party 14 days to show cause why the funds should not be permanently forfeited. The case has been adjourned until January 22, when the EFCC will file a compliance report on the publication.
The EFCC told the court that the funds came to light during investigations into fraudulent activities by high-profile NNPCL officials, as well as other criminal petitions received by the commission.
“In the course of investigation and analysing some of the documents received from the bank, the name of Mr Adamu Yakubu, a Bureau De Change, BDC, operator, featured prominently. On September 2, 2025, Mr. Yakubu, whose name featured in the course of the investigation, was invited and he volunteered his statement.
“Mr Yakubu submitted a ledger to the commission evidencing records of his transactions wherein the details of customers and the amount of dollars sold by them are recorded. Upon analysing the entries in the ledger submitted by Mr Yakubu, it was revealed that over N4,000,000,000.00 (Four Billion Naira) was transferred to the accounts of different individuals and companies on the instruction of one Mr Ibrahim Sani, a staff member of the Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS.
“It was discovered that the balance of N30.7 million sought to be forfeited was still in possession of Yakubu from the funds which he claimed were given to him by Mr Ibrahim Sani. On the 15th day of September 2025, Mr Ibrahim Sani, a staff of FIRS, whose name appeared on the ledger and who Mr Yakubu claimed owned the N30,700,000 (Thirty Million, Seven Hundred Thousand Naira Only), was invited and he volunteered his statement.
“Mr Ibrahim Sani gave a statement on how he had been using Yakubu, the BDC operator, to send money to different individuals and companies. Mr Ibrahim equally confirmed how he usually deposits huge amounts of money (Dollars) with Mr Yakubu, who, in turn, sends his naira equivalent to individuals and companies’ accounts provided by him. Mr. Ibrahim neither ascertained nor verified the source of these monies, which he has been depositing with Mr Yakubu for onward transfer to other people, which are reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities. Mr. Ibrahim, however, denied ownership of the N30.7 million found in Yakubu’s account as at the time of making his statement,” the EFCC added.
Both Yakubu and Sani denied owning the N30.7 million.
The EFCC said the funds are suspected proceeds of unlawful activities and cited provisions of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006, to justify its application for forfeiture.
Under Nigerian asset-recovery law, interim forfeiture orders preserve suspected proceeds of crime while giving affected parties the opportunity to contest the matter in court before final forfeiture is confirmed.
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