Some Nigerians have forfeited monies and properties in choice areas across the nation to the Federal Government (FG).

The assets forfeiture followed court rulings after the country’s anti-corruption agencies especially the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission pressed charges against them after credible investigations. The legal fireworks and outcomes assert anti-graft efforts to sanitise the public and private sectors, deepen public trust and enthrone probity. 

Not long ago, the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, in a landmark ruling, ordered the final forfeiture of 48 multibillion-naira assets,  including a university, linked to a former attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami. 

Several Nigerians particularly public officer holders consisting politicians and heads of public agencies among others have been linked to graft proven by anti-corruption agencies in court.  

The Peoples Gazette examines some of the individuals in the first part of this two-part analysis. 

Godwin Emefiele 

A former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who oversaw the controversial naira redesign policy, Mr Emefiele is facing multiple criminal charges in Abuja and Lagos bordering on alleged procurement fraud, abuse of office and other financial crimes.

Mr Emefiele forfeited several landed properties and assets, including $2.045 million, share certificates, luxury properties and estates valued at billions of naira across Ikoyi, Lekki, Lagos, Delta and Abuja, among others.

Aisha Achimugu 

The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s paramour and founder of Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd, Ms Achimugu recently forfeited assets, including jewellery worth N4,645,170,294.9, 11 exotic cars worth N4,293,000,000, $50,000 cash and $13 million linked to her company, to the FG.

Diepreye Alamieyeseigha

Mr Alamieyeseigha, a former Bayelsa State governor from 1999 to 2005, forfeited various assets valued at billions of dollars to the FG during his corruption and money laundering trials in 2007.

Diezani Alison-Madueke 

Currently in the United Kingdom, Ms Alison-Madueke also forfeited items consisting billions of naira worth of luxury estate and assets to the FG as proceeds of unlawful activities and corruption acquired during her tenure as Nigeria’s petroleum minister from 2010 to 2015 under the Goodluck Jonathan administration. 

Some of the forfeited cash items include multimillion dollar luxury personal property and valuables, $153.3 million stashed across multiple accounts, N7.6 billion hidden in a Nigerian commercial accident, $2.74 million and N84.5 million generated solely from rent collected on her seized properties, $52.88 million, cleaned through U.S. shell corporations by her associates and different assets valued at $80 million in Abuja, Lagos, Bayelsa and Port Harcourt.

Tafa Balogun 

Mr Balogun was Nigeria’s 11th Inspector General of Police from 2002 to 2005. He was arraigned on 70-count charge bordering on money laundering, theft, and misappropriation of police funds.

Mr Balogun, who was jailed for six months before his release in 2006, forfeited a number of property and cash, including N2, 258,100,516.87 recovered from 11 accounts traced to him. He died in 2022 aged 74. 

Joshua Dariye 

Mr Dariye, a two-term governor of Plateau State from 1999 to 2007, forfeited property and cash items, including multimillion dollar mansions in Abuja, London and Plateau State, £54,95 in cash seized directly from Dariye’s residence and hotel room in the UK, and funds recovered from his offshore and local accounts. Though jailed for 10 years, he was pardoned by the then President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022 on the grounds of age and failing health.

Jolly Nyame 

A former Taraba State governor from 2009 to 2007, Mr Nyame was arraigned on a 41-count charge of stealing N1.6 billion from the state coffers between January 2005 and May 2007. 

Aside from jailing him for more than a decade in prison, the court ordered forfeiture of his identified assets, including properties and cash. He was also pardoned by Mr Buhari in 2022.

Dibu Ojerinde

Mr Ojerinde, a former registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), forfeited assets such as schools, filling station, club house and other properties in Ghana, to the FG after an anti-graft agency proved beyond doubt that they were proceeds of corruption.

His graft trial is still ongoing. 

Abdullahi Dikko

A former comptroller-general of the Nigeria Customs Service between 2009 and 2015, Mr Dikko was arraigned for diverting funds from the NCS coffers. He later forfeited properties and cash including 17 exotic vehicles, a ₦2 billion mansion, and over ₦1 billion in cash to the FG.  

Additional items from his Kaduna warehouse comprising 42 customised tricycles, 16 cargo motorcycles, a 32-seater bus and commercial rugs, were also recovered. 

Sambo Dasuki 

Mr Dasuki, a former national security adviser from 2012 to 2015 under former president Goodluck Jonathan and briefly under Mr Buhari, was arraigned multiple times over N33.2 billion fraud in 2025, N15.5 billion fraud in 2015 and N19.4 billion also in 2015. He forfeited multibillion-naira landed property and cash to the FG. He was released in 2019 after five years in the State Security Service (SSS) detention.

Abdulrasheed Maina

Mr Maina, an ex-chair of the Pension Reform Task Team from 2010 to 2013, was convicted in 2021 for laundering millions of dollars and accused of embezzling millions more from the budget of a task force charged with reforming the country’s pension fund.

He forfeited houses, estates, companies, among others, in Abuja, Kaduna, Borno, Kaduna and Nasarawa states. Though he was jailed for eight years, Mr Maina was released in 2026 after spending only four years in prison.

Timipre Sylva

Mr Sylva, a former Bayelsa State governor and minister of state for petroleum resources, forfeited nine property across multiple locations in Abuja after they were suspected to be proceeds of illegal activities. 

He was also named in an alleged failed coup attempt against President Bola Tinubu. But he has yet to be arraigned because he’s currently on the run.

Babangida Aliyu

Mr Aliyu, who was Niger State governor from 2007 to 2015, was prosecuted on charges of conspiracy and diversion of over N1bn ecological funds which the state was said to have received from the FG in 2014.

In 2018, the ex-governor forfeited assets, including two duplex houses in Minna, a farmland with 12 chalets and four resort buildings at Birgi Minna, and the sum of N57 million to the FG.

Isa Yuguda

A former two-term governor of Bauchi State, Mr Yuguda, also forfeited a property located in the state. The forfeiture followed allegations on abuse of office, money laundering and diversion of public funds.

Chimaroke Nnamani

A former Enugu State governor, Nnamani forfeited multi-billion naira assets, including shares and cash, to the FG following a July 2015 ruling by the Federal High Court, Lagos Division. 

Iyorchia Ayu

Mr Ayu, a former senate president, four-time minister and PDP national chairman, also forfeited one asset located at Padre Pio Street, Judges Quarters, in Benue State to the FG in 2023.

Patience Jonathan 

In 2019, Mrs Jonathan, a former first Lady, permanently forfeited N9.2 million and $8.4 million dollars domiciled in several bank accounts, reasonably suspected to be proceeds of illegal activities to the FG.

Jonah Otunla 

A former accountant-general of the federation from 2011 to 2015 under ex-president Jonathan, Mr Otunla forfeited N775 million and three properties across different locations in Abuja to the FG.

Alex Badeh 

The late Badeh was a chief of defence staff from 2014 to 2015. He was prosecuted on 15-count charge on 14 counts of money laundering bordering on fraudulent removal of about N3.97 billion from the Nigerian Air Force’s account. He forfeited $1,000,000 cash and other landed assets in Abuja to the FG.

Adesola Amosu 

Mr Amosu, a former chief of air staff from 2014 to 2015, also forfeited financial assets, including N2.2 billion and N101 million recovered from Solomon Enterprises to the FG, being proceeds of corruption.

Michael Obasuyi

An ex-managing director of Platinum Multi-purpose Cooperative Society Limited, Mr Obasuyi was arraigned in 2018 on a 14-count charges bordering on stealing to the tune of N11.4 billion. Assets bought with the stolen funds, including over 116,134 buses and 20 houses, were recovered and returned to First Bank.

Kola Aluko

An ally to Ms Alison-Madueke, Mr Aluko forfeited three landed property valued at N350 million to the government after the court ruled that the funds used to procure the property were “reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities.”

Nuhu Jamari

Mr Jamari served the managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Gas and Power Investment Company Limited. He forfeited N3.4 billion and three properties in Abuja and Lagos after EFCC established that they were proceeds of unlawful activities linked to three projects awarded by the NNPCL – the Maiduguri Emergency Power Project, Abuja Independent Power Project and Benin Gas Plant Project.

Jide Omokore 

A popular businessman and ally of Ms Alison-Madueke, Mr Omokore forfeited $1 billion and assets in London to the FG after being implicated in a massive looting scheme to protect Ms Alison-Madueke’s interest.

Abidemi Rufai 

An aide to Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, Mr Rufai, jailed 60 months in prison for $2.4 million in wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in U.S., forfeited cash and a property in Lagos to the government.

Theophilus Ebonyi 

Mr Ebonyi, the general overseer of Faith On The Rock Ministry International, forfeited landed properties including schools, hotels and cash to the FG after the court established that the assets were proceeds of crimes.

Emmanuel Atew

Mr Atewe, a retired major-general, forfeited assets, including N293.97 million, 30,000 MTN-linked units in Stanbic IBTC Asset Management Limited and several plots of lands in Abuja and Bayelsa to the FG. 

Umar Muhammad

Mr Muhammad, a retired major-general and managing director of the Nigerian Army Properties Limited (NAPL), Mr Muhammad forfeited five properties across different locations in Lagos to the FG in 2024, after the court established that they were proceeds of fraud.

Jacobs Adigun

Mr Adigun, a former director of finance at the Nigerian Air Force, forfeited 12 property, including multimillion-naira houses scattered in Lagos and Abuja in 2020, to the government after the court established that they were proceeds of a N21.4 billion fraud perpetrated by him alongside Mr Amosu.

Ngozi Olejeme

Ms Olojeme, an ex-chair of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, forfeited assets, including houses in Enugu, Bayelsa, Edo, Abuja and Delta states. The forfeiture came years after the EFCC declared Ms Olojeme wanted over allegations of “criminal conspiracy, abuse of office, diversion of public funds and money laundering.”

Sani Teidi

A former director of Pension Accounts, Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mr Teidi forfeited an Abuja hotel to the government after the court ruled that it was acquired with proceeds of fraud.