The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has secured a court order for the permanent forfeiture of 48 properties linked to former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.
The order was granted on Wednesday by Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court, Abuja, who ruled that the anti-graft agency had met the legal threshold required to justify the forfeiture of the assets.
In her judgment, the judge held that Malami, his relatives and companies associated with the properties failed to successfully challenge the EFCC’s claim that the assets were acquired with proceeds of unlawful activities.
Justice Abdulmalik dismissed all applications and motions filed by the respondents in opposition to the forfeiture proceedings, describing them as lacking merit.
She stressed that the case was not centred on who owned the properties but on whether the source of funds used to acquire them was legitimate.
According to the court, the respondents did not provide sufficient evidence to dispel the reasonable suspicion raised by the EFCC regarding the origin of the assets.
Consequently, the court invoked Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act to grant the commission’s request for final forfeiture.
However, the judge excluded some of the assets from the order by setting aside the interim forfeiture earlier placed on them.
The case stemmed from a suit filed by the EFCC in January seeking the permanent forfeiture of 57 properties valued at approximately N212.8 billion, which it alleged were linked to unlawful activities involving the former AGF.
An interim forfeiture order had initially been granted by Justice Emeka Nwite on January 16, with the court directing the commission to publish notices in a national newspaper to allow interested parties to contest the action.
The affected properties are located in the Federal Capital Territory, Kano, Kaduna and Kebbi states.
In response, Malami, his wife, Nana Hadiza Malami, his son, Abdulaziz Abubakar Malami, and several companies named in the suit challenged the forfeiture application.
They argued that the properties were acquired through legitimate means and maintained that the EFCC failed to establish any direct link between the assets and alleged criminal conduct.
The respondents also contended that the commission relied on assumptions and did not identify any specific crime from which the assets were allegedly derived.
At the hearing, EFCC lawyers insisted that investigations showed the properties were purchased with illicit proceeds and held through proxies and corporate entities linked to the former minister.
The agency further argued that under civil forfeiture proceedings, it was only required to establish reasonable suspicion rather than prove criminal liability beyond reasonable doubt.
After hearing arguments from both sides and receiving their final written submissions, the court reserved judgment before eventually delivering its ruling on Wednesday, granting the final forfeiture of 48 properties to the Federal Government.
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