Court orders final forfeiture of $13 million linked to Aisha Achimugu and her firm...

Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, granted a final forfeiture order on $13 million linked to businesswoman Aisha Achimugu and her firm, Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd.

CBI News reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had taken the company to court over the ownership of the funds, which it alleged were proceeds of fraud and unlawful activities.

Delivering judgment in a suit filed by Oceangate to reclaim the money, Justice Nwite ruled that the company “failed woefully” to establish how it acquired the $13 million.

He held that the EFCC successfully convinced the court that the funds were proceeds of fraud and should be forfeited to the Federal Government.

The court also rejected claims that the money represented gifts received by Achimugu through the company.

Justice Nwite noted that Achimugu did not appear before the court to show cause why the funds should not be forfeited.

Additionally, the judge observed that none of the alleged donors who purportedly gave the funds as gifts testified in court.

He held that the burden of proving legitimate ownership of the money was not discharged by the applicant, stressing that Oceangate failed to show any business transactions or payments from customers that could justify the source of the funds.

Justice Nwite had earlier, on August 22, 2025, granted an interim forfeiture order and directed the EFCC to publish the notice in a national newspaper, giving interested parties 14 days to show cause why the money should not be permanently forfeited.

In its justification for the forfeiture, EFCC investigator Usman Aliyu stated in an affidavit that the commission acted on intelligence indicating that Oceangate Engineering Limited used funds suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities to acquire oil blocks from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) without due process.

Aliyu maintained that the $13 million used by the company to pay signature bonuses for oil assets PPL 302 and PPL 3007 did not originate from legitimate business activities.

According to him, part of the funds came from large sums transferred by a state government to contractors for projects, despite there being no contractual or business relationship between those contractors and Oceangate.

He further alleged that the contractors who transferred the funds were neither investors, directors, nor shareholders in the company.

Oceangate, in its defence, urged the court not to grant the final forfeiture order, insisting that the funds were partly from legitimate business earnings and partly gifts to its Group Chief Executive Officer, Achimugu.

However, the EFCC asked the court to dismiss the company’s claims, arguing that its investigation contradicted those assertions.

Aliyu also told the court that Iliya Wakil, who deposed to Oceangate’s affidavit, was merely a nominal director with no shareholding in the company.

He said Wakil was an employee of Felak Concept Group Limited, another company owned by Achimugu, and had admitted in his statement that he received instructions directly from her.

The investigator further stated that Wakil had no record of earning a salary from Oceangate, raising doubts about his role in the company.

Describing Oceangate, Aliyu alleged that it was “a briefcase/shell company created as a vehicle for the purpose of holding petroleum-related assets procured with funds reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activity.”

He added that portraying the firm as “a professional oil and gas consortium” was misleading, insisting that its operations involved acquiring petroleum assets with “tainted funds.”