Court Document Reveals ‘Army General’ Behind ₦10.9 Billion Assets Seized By EFCC

A court document has directly linked the recently seized N10.9 billion worth of assets to the suspected “unlawful activities” of a deceased army general, Aminu Kano Maude.

‘The court document obtained by PREMIUM TIMES removes the confusing attribution of the assets to an unnamed “top military officer” in the two statements the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has since issued on the forfeiture of the properties.

In what has been criticised as the EFCC’s undue concealment of the identity of the actual person behind the acquisition of the assets the commission had said in a statement on Monday that they were seized from “a top military officer”.

Without providing the name of the top military officer, the statement added that the assets were being “controlled through proxies including the late General Aminu Maude, and companies such as Atlasfield Integrated Services Nigeria Limited, Marhaba Events Place, Aflac Plastics and Atlasfield Gas Plant Limited.”

The anti-graft agency’s follow-up statement on the following day – February 15 – completely excluded Mr Maude’s name while maintaining that the assets were being “held by fronts and proxies to a top military officer”.

The second statement which provided a list of 24 assets covered by the final forfeiture order obtained by the commission from the Federal High Court in Abuja, on Monday, also raised the worth of the assets up from the about N3 billion indicated in the previous statement to N10.9 billion.

But both statements signed by the commission’s spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, diverted attention away from Mr Maude as the central figure in the alleged fraudulent acquisition of the assets.

A copy of the earlier order issued by the Federal High Court judge, Nkeoye Maha, on May 13, 2020, for an interim forfeiture of the assets, however, explicitly linked the assets to Mr Maude’s suspected unlawful activity.

The court order with the same title as provided by the EFCC in its application for the interim forfeiture order, says, ‘In the matter of the ex-parte application by the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for interim forfeiture of order in respect of some assets situate in different parts of Nigeria suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activity traced to on General Maude Aminu Kano (rtd) (a public officer) and his proxies both bodies and individuals”.

The judge, in the court order went on to direct the EFCC to advertise the interim forfeiture order in This Day, Punch, Nation, Guardian Daily Trust or Leadership newspapers.

She order invited any person with justifiable grounds to oppose the issuance of an order for the final forfeiture of the assets to the federal government to appear in court to show cause.

Ms Maha also ordered the EFCC to file a certificate of compliance concerning the advertisement of the interim order not later than seven days.

On February 14, EFCC announced in a statement that the court had issued an order of final forfeiture of the 24 assets valued at N10.9 billion.

The list of the forfeited properties contained landed properties located in different parts of Kano, Katsina, Calabar (Cross River State) and Kaduna.

Among them are nine filling stations scattered in Kano with a total of 300 pumps.

They also included filling stations, Event Centres, Plazas, Block Industries, Truck Assembly Plant, Polythene Production factory and table water factory.

Mr Maude, who hailed from Kano, served in the army finance corps and died in November 2019.

-PREMIUM TIMES