“We’re Going to Take Everything”: EFCC Vows Appeal After Court Spares Nine Malami Properties From Forfeiture

ABUJA

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it is not done with former Attorney-General of the Federation Abubakar Malami, vowing to appeal a Federal High Court ruling that spared nine of his properties from forfeiture even as 48 others were permanently handed to the Federal Government.

Malami, who served as AGF for eight years, has not been criminally charged in connection with the properties; the case was pursued through civil, non-conviction-based forfeiture proceedings.

He and his family had opposed the EFCC’s application through the courts, arguing it was wrongly brought.

The July verdict

ValidViewNetwork’s checks show the matter traces to January 2026, when the EFCC filed a civil forfeiture suit against 57 properties valued at over N212 billion, alleging they were proceeds of unlawful activity accumulated during Malami’s tenure.

An interim forfeiture order followed, and after publication in a national newspaper, Malami, his wife Nana Hadiza, his son Abdulaziz, and companies linked to the assets filed objections.

On 15 July, Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court in Abuja delivered her verdict after a five-hour sitting. She dismissed the family’s objections as “wanting in merit,” ruling that the central question was not who owned the properties but how legitimate the funds used to acquire them were.

Forty-eight properties, among them a university, hotels, malls and residential houses across Abuja, Kaduna, Kano and Birnin-Kebbi, worth a reported N180.4 billion, were ordered permanently forfeited.

ADVERTISEMENT

The nine that got away

The judge, however, vacated the interim order over nine other properties in Kebbi and Kaduna states, worth roughly N28.7 billion, holding that the EFCC had failed to establish they were unlawfully acquired.

That gap did not sit well with the commission’s leadership.

Speaking on 26 August at the 43rd Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime, held at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, EFCC chairman Ola Olukoyede told delegates the agency intends to contest the ruling on the remaining nine properties.

“Even the nine that were left for him, I’m considering filing an appeal so that we can take everything away from him,” he said. “And we’re going to do that.”

A commission staking its record

Olukoyede used the same lecture, themed “Asset Recovery and the Rule of Law – Taking the Profit Out of Crime,” to hold up the Malami case as proof of the value of civil forfeiture, which he said allows the commission to recover suspected proceeds of crime without waiting on the slower wheels of criminal trials.

He cited asset tracing, credible intelligence and judicial cooperation as central to the strategy.

Whether the appeal court sees the nine remaining properties the same way the commission does is now the open question hanging over an already scrutinised case.