Court orders permanent forfeiture of N13bn recovered from Ikoyi apartment

Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court, Lagos, on Tuesday ordered the permanent forfeiture of the sums of $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000 recovered from No. 16, Osborne Road, Flat 7B Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, to the Federal Government.
The funds stashed in iron cabinets and “Ghana-must-go” bags in the apartment were recovered on April 11, 2017 by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
EFCC had on April 13 obtained an interim court order temporarily forfeiting the funds to the Federal Government.
Mr. Hassan, who granted the interim order, had given 14 days for anyone interested in the funds to appear before him to show why the money should not be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.
However, no one was said to have came before the judge to claim the money on May 5, 2017, when the matter came up.
A legal practitioner in person of Olukoya Ogungbeje, appeared before the judge, with an application, urging the judge to suspend the final forfeiture proceedings pending when a three-man panel constituted by President Muhammadu Buhari in relation to the funds would submit its report.
The panel, headed by the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, was to probe the claim and counter-claim of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency and Rivers State Government to the funds.
But the EFCC had opposed Mr. Ogungbeje’s application and urged Mr. Hassan to dismiss it and go ahead with the forfeiture proceedings.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Justice Hassan upheld the EFCC’s submission and dismissed Mr. Ogungbeje’s application for lacking in merit.
The judge described the application as “totally strange”, noting that “having not appealed against the interim forfeiture order, Mr. Ogungbeje had no right to seek a stay of proceedings in the case.”
The judge, who noted that Mr. Ogungbeje was not a party in the suit filed by the EFCC, described the lawyer as a “meddlesome interloper” and a “busybody”, adding that “his application was strange to law.”
He advised the lawyer to explore the Freedom of Information Act if he wanted information from the Federal Government on the findings of the Osinbajo’s panel.
Having dismissed Mr. Ogungbeje’s application, the judge subsequently made an order permanently forfeiting the funds to the Federal Government, noting that no one had appeared to show cause why the permanent forfeiture order should not be made.
The judge said: “I am in complete agreement with the submission of the learned counsel for the applicant (EFCC) that the property sought to be attached are reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities and that by every standard this huge sum of money is not expected to be kept without going through a designated financial institution; more so, nobody has shown cause why the said sum should not be forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria. Having regard to the foregoing, I have no other option but to grant this application as prayed”.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, I hereby make the following orders: 1. A final order is made forfeiting the sums of $43,449,947 found by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at Flat 7B of No. 16 Osborne Road, Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, which sum is reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities to the Federal Government of Nigeria,” the judge held.
The judge made the same order in respect of the £27,800 and N23,218,000.