{"id":20563,"date":"2019-09-11T10:12:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T10:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=20563"},"modified":"2019-09-11T10:12:29","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T10:12:29","slug":"court-orders-final-forfeiture-of-diezanis-40m-jewellery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=20563","title":{"rendered":"Court Orders Final Forfeiture of Diezani\u2019s $40m Jewellery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By <strong>Wilson Uwujaren<\/strong>, Head, Media and Publicity, EFCC<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Justice I.N. Oweibo of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos , on Tuesday, September 10, 2019, ordered the final forfeiture of some jewellery and a customized gold Iphone valued at $40m belonging to a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, to the Federal Government.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Judge had, on July 5, 2019, granted the interim forfeiture of the properties, following an ex parte application filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Justice Oweibo had also directed interested parties to show cause why the properties should not be forfeited to the Federal Government.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, Nnamdi Awa-Kalu, counsel to the respondent, Alison-Madueke, had filed a motion on notice setting aside the order of the court granting the interim forfeiture of the properties to the Federal Government.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Awa-Kalu, in the application, also claimed that his client was a successful businesswoman in the oil and gas sector, who had acquired the properties through legitimate means as well as gifts.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, counsel to the EFCC, Rotimi Oyedepo, argued that the properties were reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime as the respondent failed to show how they were acquired.<br \/>Oyedepo also submitted that \u201cit is an unlawful activity for a public officer to receive gifts as a result of what was done or not done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oyedepo, therefore, urged the court to discountenance the application of the respondent and forfeit the properties to the Federal Government.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his ruling, Justice Oweibo held that the issues raised by the EFCC were more apt and that \u201cit is only logical that the court dismisses the respondent\u2019s application. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Justice Oweibo also held that the respondent failed to show cause why the properties should not be forfeited to the Federal Government and consequently granted the EFCC\u2019s application.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Wilson Uwujaren, Head, Media and Publicity, EFCC Justice I.N. Oweibo of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos , on Tuesday, September 10, 2019, ordered the final forfeiture of some jewellery and a customized gold Iphone valued at $40m belonging to a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, to the Federal Government. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}