By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, says she was not given fair hearing in all the proceedings leading to the orders granted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for final forfeiture of her seized assets.
To this end, she is praying a Federal High Court in Abuja to vacate the orders, urging for an extension of time within which to seek leave to apply for order to set aside the EFCC’s public notice issued to conduct public sale on her property, court papers in her originating summon indicate.
The anti-corruption agency had planned to conduct public sale of all assets seized from Alison-Madueke beginning from Jan. 9 as contained in its public notice; following various court judgments/orders issued in favour of the commission as final forfeiture orders against property and personal effects of the former Minister, News Agency of Nigeria had reported.
The ex-minister sought five orders from the court presided over by Justice Inyang Ekwo in a motion marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/21/2023 dated and filed Jan. 6 by her lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, in which EFCC is the sole respondent.
She argued that the various orders were made without jurisdiction, insisting these “ought to be set aside ex debito justitiae.”
“The various court orders issued in favour of the respondent and upon which the respondent issued the public notice to conduct public sale of items contained in the public notice most of which court the interest of the applicant were issued in breach of the applicant’s right to fair hearing as guaranteed by Section 36 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, as altered, and other similar constitutional provisions,” she said.
According to her, the courts were misled into making several of the final forfeiture orders against her assets through suppression or non-disclosure of material facts.
“The several applications upon which the courts made the final order of forfeiture against the applicant were obtained upon gross misstatements, misrepresentations, non-disclosure, concealment and suppression of material facts and this honourable court has the power to set-aside same ex debito justitiae, as a void order is as good as if it was never made at all.
“The orders were made without recourse to the constitutional right to fair hearing and right to property accorded the applicant by the constitution.
“The applicant was never served with the processes of court in all the proceedings that led to the order of final forfeiture,” she said, among other grounds given.
At the mentioning of the matter on Monday, Alison-Madueke’s counsel, Oluchi Uche, told the court that the EFFC only served them a counter affidavit on Friday, praying for more time to respond.
But the EFCC, in a counter affidavit deposed to by Rufai Zaki, a detective said the courts differently ordered the commission to do a newspaper publication inviting parties to show cause why the said property should not be forfeited to the Federal Government, before final orders were made.
While stating that most of the ex-minister’s depositions were untrue, Zaki urged the court to dismiss Alison-Madueke’s application.
