Court orders interim forfeiture of Diezani’s N325m Lekki land to FG

• Nigeria to gain 10% of $90 billion global gas market, says NNPC
• New project to add 3,600 megawatts to national power grid

The Federal High Court, Lagos, presided by Justice Babs Kuewumi, has ordered temporary forfeiture of a landed property, valued N325 million, allegedly belonging to former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, to the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Justice Kuewumi granted the order of temporary forfeiture of the property yesterday sequel to a motion filed and argued by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) counsel, Anslem Oziokor, on a vacant plot of land said to be at Plot 13, Block 11, Oniru Chieftaincy Family Private Estate, Lekki, Lagos.

The EFCC had in the motion ex-parte, marked FHC/L/CS/811/18, sought for an interim order of the court forfeiting to the Federal Government the assets and property named and described in the schedule to the application which property and assets are “reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activity.”Oziokor, who in the affidavit sought an order authorising the commission to appoint a competent person (s) or firm to manage the assets, also sought for an order of the court directing the applicant to notify the person (s) in whose possession the property sought to be forfeited to appear before the court and show cause within 14 days why the property should not be forfeited to the Federal Government or in the alternative, an order directing the publication in any national newspaper of the interim order.

Justice Kuewumi, while granting the application for interim forfeiture of the property, further ruled that the order must be published in a national newspaper for anybody who has interest in the property to come forward and show cause why the property should not be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.He, therefore, fixed July 24, 2018 for the return date.

In another development, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru, has said that strategies are being perfected to make the country gain 10 per cent share in the global Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) market, which currently worth over $90 billion.Baru, who stated this yesterday at the 27th World Gas Conference (WGC) in Washington DC, United States (U.S.), said the Federal Government had kicked off the 614 kilometres Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project, which intends to deliver gas along key areas, thereby generating additional 3,600 megawatts (mw) to the national power grid.

“We have also kicked off the 614km Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project which, on completion, will deliver gas along these areas, thereby generating additional 3,600mw to the national grid,” he stated.

The NNPC boss, who was optimistic that Nigeria would compete for a better share of the market, stated that as of today, Nigeria had completed and commissioned about 600km of new gas pipelines, thereby connecting all existing power plants to permanent gas supply pipelines.He said the planned Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project would foster regional economic integration, reduce desertification, as well as enable accelerated regional electrification.

“It will contribute significantly to the overall economic development of the region through the emergence of a wide range of industrial clusters around petrochemical, manufacturing, agro-business and fertilizers, among others,” he stated.