A Federal High Court in Abuja has granted former Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke, permission to present evidence of her recent acquittal by a UK court in her ongoing legal battle against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Justice Inyang Ekwo approved the application on Wednesday after Diezani’s lawyer, Godwin Iyinbor, requested leave to file a supplementary affidavit containing the judgment delivered by the Southwark Crown Court on June 17, 2026.
The application was not opposed by the EFCC’s counsel, Mofesomo Oyetibo, although he argued that it was intended only to draw the court’s attention to the former minister’s acquittal.
Justice Ekwo subsequently granted the application and adjourned the matter until October 6, when both the EFCC’s preliminary objection and the substantive suit will be heard together.
Alison-Madueke is seeking to recover assets previously forfeited to the Federal Government. In her amended suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/21/2023, she is challenging the EFCC’s decision to auction properties and personal effects linked to her.
Her legal team, led by Prof. Mike Ozekhome, argued that the UK court’s decision is a significant new development that supports her claims that she has not been convicted of any offence and that due process should be followed before permanently depriving her of her assets.
According to the application, the UK acquittal is relevant to issues surrounding fair hearing, the absence of a criminal conviction and compliance with statutory procedures governing forfeiture proceedings. The lawyers maintained that they were not asking the Nigerian court to treat the foreign judgment as binding but merely to consider it as a material fact in determining the case.
The UK court had cleared Alison-Madueke of six bribery-related charges after a five-month trial, ending a prosecution brought by the UK’s National Crime Agency over allegations linked to her tenure as Nigeria’s petroleum minister between 2011 and 2015.
