This happened as the
Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday ordered the permanent forfeiture of the
2,149 pieces of jewellery and a customised gold iPhone, valued at $40m,
recovered from the former minister’s house in Abuja.
The former Minister of
Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke has lost the bid to retrieve
her jewellery and a customised gold iPhone forfeited to the Federal Government.
In a ruling on Tuesday,
Justice Nicholas Nicholas Oweibo held that Diezani, through her lawyer, Awa
Kalu (SAN), failed to show cause why the items should not be permanently
forfeited to the Federal Government.
The Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission had told the judge that the jewellery and iPhone were beyond
the former Minister’s “known and provable lawful income.”
The anti-graft agency
further said that findings showed that she started acquiring the jewellery in
2012, two years after she was appointed Minister.
EFCC also said it was in
possession of the details of the bank account through which Mrs Alison-Madueke
received her salary as a minister and stated that a “damning intelligence
report” received by the Commission led to the search of former minister’s house
at No. 10 Fredrick Chiluba Close, Asokoro, Abuja.
The Former Minister on her
part had challenged the seizure of the jewellery from her premises by the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
In an affidavit filed on
her behalf by her counsel, Prof Awa Kalu (SAN), Diezani, who is currently in
the United Kingdom, alleged that the EFCC violated her fundamental “right to
own property and to appropriate them at her discretion,” under sections 43 and
44 of the constitution.
She also accused the
anti-graft agency of entering her apartment illegally and taking the items
without any court order.
On July 5, 2019, The
Economic and Financial Crime Commission EFCC had secured an order of the court
temporarily forfeiting the expensive jewellery to the Federal Government.
No comments:
Post a Comment