Appeal Court lifts order freezing 124 bank accounts ‘linked to’ Aisha Achimugu
Appeal Court lifts order freezing 124 bank accounts ‘linked to’ Aisha Achimugu
The court of enchantment in Port Harcourt, Rivers country, has overturned the order freezing the financial institution money owed of Aisha Achimugu, a businesswoman and founding father of Oceangate Engineering Oil & gas Ltd, as well as the ones of different businesses related to her.
In a unanimous choice issued on Wednesday, a 3-member panel of the appellate court rejected the ex parte transient freezing order granted by the federal high courtroom in Port Harcourt on April 10, 2025.
The panel consists of Justices Muhammad Ibrahim Sirajo, Ishaq Mohammed Sani, and Eleojo Enenche.
The monetary and economic Crimes fee filed an appeal towards the decision of the federal excessive court in Port Harcourt on August 27, 2025, in the Achimugu case.
On April 10, 2025, Turaki Adamu, a decide of the federal high court docket in Port Harcourt, issued an order briefly suspending 124 financial institution accounts connected to Achimugu and ordering banks to halt outward transactions.
The freezing order used to be issued following an utility by using the EFCC.
consistent with courtroom files obtained via news shops, on may also 25, 2025, Achimugu filed a pass on be aware to vacate the freezing order, claiming that it used to be an abuse of judicial manner.
Achimugu informed the court that on April 24, 2025 (show off FF2), the EFCC instructed SunTrust bank to move coins from a frozen account to a Central bank of Nigeria (CBN)/EFCC restoration account whilst the freezing order used to be still in place.
Turaki declared on August 27, 2025, that the switch of N1.8 billion from account 0001313173 at SunTrust bank to the CBN’s restoration account was once illegal. Adamu directed a right away reversal of the amount.
The account was related to one of the purported Achimugu-associated firms.
EFCC’s attraction
dissatisfied with the courtroom judgment, the anti-graft organisation filed an appeal primarily based on 3 grounds.
The grounds of the EFCC’s attraction had been that the decrease courtroom lacked jurisdiction to behavior complaints and supply the ruling during its annual lengthy vacation; that the court acted on its own movement and denied the appellant a honest listening to through granting unsolicited remedy; and that the court failed to exactly compare the affidavit proof regarding the identity and credit balances of the money owed.
Achimugu’s recommend knowledgeable the courtroom that the lower court docket operated within its authority to order the reversal of “illegally transferred price range” in reaction to the EFCC’s appeal.
The attorneys contended that the order was a right and criminal consequential order designed to implement the prevailing orders.
appeal court Judgement
In Sirajo’s lead choice, the attraction courtroom concluded that handing over a reserved judgment for the duration of the courtroom’s annual vacation “does now not constitute the behavior of fashionable prison commercial enterprise and does no longer occasion a miscarriage of justice”.
The appellate courtroom dominated that the lower courtroom used to be correct to difficulty its decision on August 27, 2025, and rejected the EFCC’s declare that it was denied a fair listening to.
The courtroom in addition said that the respondent filed a new affidavit and the anti-graft organisation filed a brand new counter-affidavit within the decrease court approximately fund transfers.
The appellate court docket mentioned a “affordable individual looking on the exchange of these certain similarly affidavits might finish that each events were fully heard on the problem of transfer of finances”.
On whether or not the lower court docket’s reversal order was once furnished outside of the reliefs requested, the appellate court docket located that a court that granted a freezing order has the authority to trouble any other order to preserve its verdict.
The appellate court ruled that the lower court docket had the authority to trouble the reversal order and that it did not violate the EFCC’s proper to a fair hearing.
“An order compelling the reversal of funds moved out of a frozen account all through the pendency of the freezing order, and barring leave, is a consequential order incidental to the preservation of the res,” the judge ruled.
on the third difficulty, the appellant courtroom held that the money owed frozen via the lower courtroom’s order on April 10, 2025 “were present day debts — particularly, force.FGC.net’s current account No. 0001313173, sporting a credit score stability of N50,518,009.fifty seven, and Felak concepts Ltd’s current account No. 0001252281, wearing N16,220,608.37”.
The court ordered that each present day account balances remained unchanged. The appellate courtroom determined that more portions are maintained in separate debts, with N1.eight billion in a hard and fast savings account and “N7,790,000,000.00 referable to inner ledger account nos. 2010155010 and 2010155011”.
The court ruled that the trial judge said the accounts similar and failed to give an explanation for “how modern account No. 0001313173 ought to concurrently keep a few N50 million and yet yield N1.8 billion for transfer”.
The appellate court docket decided that the attraction would have failed if the contemporary account containing the N1.8 billion were covered inside the April 10, 2025 freezing choice.
The appellate court docket struck aside the judgment mandating the go back of the N1.eight billion paid to the CBN/EFCC recovery account for the reason that account containing the sum used to be not part of the earlier freezing order.
“I locate that the cloth before the court docket did no longer establish that the finances transferred beneath showcase FF2 emanated from any account frozen by means of the order of tenth April 2025,” the judge remarked.
The appellate courtroom decided that its order did not help the constitutionality of the EFCC’s decision to require the switch of N1.eight billion.
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