A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 granted an order of final forfeiture of the $13 million linked to a billionaire businesswoman, Ms Aisha Achimugu and her Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd, to the federal government.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, dragged Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd before the court with regards to the ownership of $13m suspected to be proceeds of fraud and unlawful activities.
The Court presided over by Justice Emeka Nwite in its judgment in a suit instituted by Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd to claim the funds, held that the company failed woefully to establish how it came about the money.
Justice Nwite held that the EFCC succeeded in convincing the court that the funds are proceeds of fraud and should be forfeited to the government and therefore dismissed the claims that the $13 million was gifts received into the Oceangate Engineering Company by Aisha Achimugu.
The court also said that Aisha Achimugu never showed up in court to show cause why the funds should not be forfeited to the federal government, stressing that not even a single person who gave the monetary gifts to Achimugu to the tune of $13 million was called to testify.
Justice Nite also held that the burden to establish genuine ownership of the money was not established by the applicant to counter the claims of the EFCC that the money was a proceeds of fraud based on its investigation.
The court also said that Oceangate Engineering Company did not show the business it undertook that fetched it the money and did not also show whether any payment was made to it by any of its customer.
The trial judge, had on August 22, 2025, granted the EFCC an interim order forfeiting the $13 million linked to Oceangate to the federal government and directed the EFCC to publish the order in a national daily for interested person(s) to show cause within 14 days why the funds should not be permanently forfeited to the government.
While justifying the forfeiture moves, an EFCC investigator, Usman Aliyu, swore to an affidavit stating that the anti-graft agency acted on intelligence that showed that Oceangate Engineering Limited, without following due process, used funds reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activity to acquire oil blocks from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
According to Aliyu, the $13 million used by Oceangate to pay for the Signature Bonuses in respect of PPL302 and PPL3007 were not proceeds of any lawful and legitimate business, but represented funds suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activity.
Aliyu told the court; “Part of the funds used by Oceangate Engineering Oil and Gas Limited to pay for the Signature bonuses in respect of PPL 302 & PPL 3007 was derived from the huge sum of money transferred by a state government to the contractors for the execution of contracts for the benefit of the state.
Aliyu further claimed that there was never any contractual or business relationships between Oceangate and the contractors who transferred the aforementioned public funds to the account of the company (Oceangate Engineering).
The EFCC investigator also said the contractors, who transferred the aforementioned public funds to Oceangate, were neither investors, directors, nor shareholders in Oceangate.
However, Oceangate, in its affidavit prayed the court not to make the order of final forfeiture of the funds because all the funds were derived partly from legitimate earnings of the company and partly gifts given to the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Company, Aisha Achimugu.
The EFCC in its reply to the affidavit by Oceangate, urged the court to dismiss the application.
