{"id":93202,"date":"2025-03-06T17:41:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T17:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=93202"},"modified":"2025-03-06T17:42:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T17:42:16","slug":"93202","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=93202","title":{"rendered":"Court orders final forfeiture of $1.4m linked to Emefiele, ex-CBN Gov"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justice Ayokunle Faji of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday, March 6, 2025, ordered the final forfeiture of $1,426,175.14 (One Million, Four Hundred and Twenty Six Thousand, One Hundred and Seventy Five United States Dollars, Fourteen cents)\u00a0 linked to a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The order followed a motion filed by the respondent seeking to set aside the court\u2019s final forfeiture order of June 25, 2024.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The court had given the final forfeiture order after a motion on notice filed and argued by Bilkisu Buhari, counsel for the EFCC, which went uncontested by any interested parties.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The motion was supported by an affidavit deposed to by David Jayeoba, an investigating officer with the EFCC who stated that investigation carried out showed that the fund was reasonably suspected to be proceed of unlawful activities “warehoused” in Donatone Limited’s\u00a0 (DL)\u2019s Titan Trust Bank account.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He stated thus: “The investigation traced the funds to having been fixed into interest-yielding accounts, dissipated and laundered through a foreign account in Mauritius, and transported back to Nigeria under disguise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf the total sum of $26,552,000.00 USD received by the firm, the balance standing in the said account as of today is the sum of $1,426,175.14 million USD.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the balance in the account that the applicant seeks to forfeit to the Federal Government of Nigeria, which has been traced to be the proceeds of unlawful activities of erstwhile Central Bank Governor of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele and his cronies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cInvestigation further revealed that the international entities sourcing for forex were pressured into parting with huge funds to access forex during the period.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe signatories to the account warehousing the sum of $1,426,175.14 USD sought to be forfeited are at large and are making frantic efforts to dissipate the funds electronically.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Subsequently, the court granted the order.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, in a counter-affidavit by\u00a0solicitors for Donatone Limited dated November 25, 2024, they argued that the depositions contained in paragraphs four to 18 of the affidavit deposed to by Jayeoba were not correct.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Responding to the counter-affidavit, the EFCC in an affidavit dated November 29, 2024 countered their claim with more evidence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Subsequently, Justice Faji held that: \u201cAnyone laying claims to the fund, must show the lawfulness of the acquisition and not that the said fund is not proceeds of crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving listened to the submission of the applicant\u2019s counsel and also perused the motion just moved, together with the affidavit in support, the motion is hereby granted.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, Justice Faji granted the application for final forfeiture of the fund.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u25cf By <\/span>Dele Oyewale, <\/span><\/b>Head,\u00a0 Media & Publicity, EFCC.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justice Ayokunle Faji of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday, March 6, 2025, ordered the final forfeiture of $1,426,175.14 (One Million, Four Hundred and Twenty Six Thousand, One Hundred and Seventy Five United States Dollars, Fourteen cents)\u00a0 linked to a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele. The order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":64616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[352,1036,324],"class_list":["post-93202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-court","tag-emefiele","tag-forfeiture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93202","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=93202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/64616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}