Businesswoman and investor Aisha Achimugu has publicly accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of violating her fundamental rights, unlawfully targeting her businesses and conducting what she described as a sustained media campaign against her, while urging Nigerian authorities and the international community to uphold the rule of law and protect legitimate investments.

In a lengthy statement made available to the Guardian, Achimugu, an accountant and entrepreneur, stated that she had endured nearly two years of investigations, asset seizures, account freezes and public attacks despite maintaining her innocence and cooperating with anti-graft authorities.

She said the campaign had endangered her life, those of her children and parents, damaged her reputation and disrupted investments exceeding $100 million across Nigeria’s oil and gas sector and other industries.

“I am not a criminal, and I have never been convicted of any offence,” she said, adding that she had honoured more than 20 invitations from the EFCC and remained willing to submit herself to due process.

Achimugu alleged that the EFCC froze her personal and corporate bank accounts in connection with investigations involving MBA Forex and Capital Investment after she was wrongly linked to the company. According to her, she clarified that her company had only undertaken a single business transaction on behalf of the firm and subsequently refunded ₦58 million to the commission as requested.

She further claimed that despite maintaining communication with the EFCC through her legal representatives regarding invitations for questioning, she was declared wanted in March 2025 shortly after her company, Oceangate Oil & Gas Limited, paid $20 million to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) for oil assets.

According to her, armed EFCC operatives later searched her residence and seized jewellery, personal funds and other valuables.

The businesswoman also alleged that despite obtaining court orders in proceedings relating to her fundamental rights, she was arrested upon her return to Nigeria in April 2025, detained beyond the period ordered by the court and compelled to surrender her international passport.

She further accused the anti-graft agency of obtaining ex parte forfeiture orders over assets connected to her companies while appeals and other court proceedings remained pending.

Achimugu claimed the investigations and subsequent publicity surrounding the case had resulted in the closure of several international banking relationships, loss of financing opportunities and damage to her personal and business reputation.

She also alleged that information circulated about the investigation had affected her international travel, including the revocation of her United States visa and complications relating to her Grenadian citizenship, preventing her from attending an executive programme at Harvard University.

According to her, the consequences of the investigations had extended beyond her businesses to affect her family, employees and philanthropic activities.

Achimugu said she had invested almost $90 million in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector over the past five years and attracted investments exceeding $100 million into the country through her various business interests.

She also highlighted the activities of the Sam Empowerment Foundation, which she said had funded health, education, scholarship, water and community development projects across Nigeria.

Calling on the National Assembly, the judiciary, security agencies, human rights organisations and the international business community to intervene, Achimugu urged authorities to protect legitimate investors and ensure court orders are respected.

She maintained that her legal team was pursuing remedies in Nigerian and international courts and reiterated her willingness to cooperate with lawful investigations.

“I believe that justice delayed is justice denied, and I am not afraid to face the law provided due process is followed,” she said.

Read the full statement by Achimugu below:

Nigerian Business Leader and Investor Speaks Out: “Protection of Life and Respect for the Rule of Law”

Call for the protection of my life, the lives of my children, the protection of my privacy, an end to the misleading media trial on my person and the companies I have built with credibility and capacity over several years, respect for Court Orders, and the protection of over $100 Million I have within the Oil & Gas sector, and several other sectors both in Nigeria and International

I, Aisha Achimugu (OFR), an Accountant and law-abiding citizen of Nigeria (I was a wife) and now a widow of the late Engr. Sulaiman Achimugu, a man whose life was a testament to the Nigerian dream. My husband was a paragon of integrity who rose to lead the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC), retiring with a record so unblemished that it served as a beacon of transparency for the entire industry throughout this impactful journey. I was beside him as his wife; being his wife was an addition to the values I already had from the foundation that I was born into, a foundation that had consequences for any wrongdoing.   I am a mother, a daughter, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, a proven business developer, with visible progressive track records on all my businesses and visible impact in the labour space, and a contributor to the national economy, who has spent decades building indigenous capacity and employing hundreds of my fellow citizens. Our family name has always been synonymous with service, yet today, that legacy is being systematically dismantled by an unrelenting and unjust assault.

Today, I am compelled to address both the local and international press in connection with what can best be described as a sustained campaign of calumny that threatens not just my personal rights to life and property, but the lives of my young children, aged parents, extended family and staff, and also the enabling environment for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Nigeria.

For nearly two years now, I have been subjected to the worst kind of oppression, character assassination, intimidation and the deliberate dissipation of my lawfully acquired personal property through the malicious actions of agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), led by its current Chairman. Such actions, which I have carefully outlined below, constitute an affront to the principles of the rule of law and natural justice, as provided in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Many have misinterpreted my long silence as fear or guilt resulting from the misleading and malicious information targeted at me. I state categorically that I refrained from speaking out purely out of personal restraint and national interest. I have always appreciated the enabling environment Nigeria provided for me to thrive over the last three decades. An example of this commitment was the immense collaboration I experienced during an international roadshow to over 30 countries to promote the then  Ibaka Deep Sea Port project, which brought about the visible birth of Ibom Deep Sea Port, a massive infrastructure initiative I proposed to the Federal Government to drive national growth. With a mere letter of expression of interest to the Ministry of Transport in port development, without knowing who I was or a test to my capacity, but trusted in my representation of professionalism.

Nonetheless, sometime in 2023, the Port Harcourt zonal office of the EFCC wrongly froze all my personal bank accounts, those of my children, my companies within the Felak Group, and the group account itself, having misled the Federal High Court (FHC) into granting an order of interim forfeiture, on the mistaken premise that I was a partner, associate, director or shareholder of a company called MBA Forex and Capital Investment.

In January 2024, a separate invitation letter from the EFCC raised the same MBA Forex matter again. My legal counsel and I honoured the invitation and clarified the true, limited nature of my company’s dealings with MBA. We had simply carried out and been paid for a single transaction on the company’s behalf, because the CBN had publicly declared MBA a Ponzi scheme. I held no ownership stake in MBA Forex. To close the matter, we refunded N58,000,000 relating to that transaction by bank draft to the EFCC recovery account, which I was told settled my company’s involvement in the investigation on the petition of the aggrieved people.  This cleared the mistaken impression that  I, my children and my companies were part-owners of MBA or had any stake or involvement with them.

A situation escalated rapidly in March 2025. On 4 March 2025, I received a two-line WhatsApp message from an unknown number inviting me to the EFCC’s Port Harcourt office the following day, the 5^th of March 2025. I called the unknown number to explain my unavailability until the third week of  April, because  I was abroad when I received the message. My legal counsel followed up by hand-delivering an official letter to the Port Harcourt office on 5 March 2025, in the same position as my earlier phone call stated above,  which was duly received and stamped. Despite this, I received a series of aggressive calls and further WhatsApp messages on 9 March 2025. To ensure full transparency, my lawyer wrote directly to the EFCC Chairman in Abuja on 12 March 2025, attaching the earlier correspondence and confirming my availability for 27 and 28 April 2025. This record of correspondence definitively refutes any suggestion that I absconded; rather, I remained in constant, documented communication with the EFCC.

Yet on 10 March 2025, even as this cooperative exchange of letters was ongoing, what looked at first like an ordinary social media rumour was revealed to be a carefully planned, targeted and malicious campaign of blackmail, slander and defamation against my person, my children, my family and my businesses, flooding local and international platforms with my name and image under a false narrative. This malicious, deliberate action was orchestrated with no regard for my contributions to the national economy and my International representation of a Nigerian Citizen.

The malicious nature of the EFCC’s actions became undeniable on 28 March 2025. On that day, my company, Oceangate Oil & Gas Limited, the winning bidder for PPL 302-DO and PPL 3007, submitted proof of payment to the NUPRC totalling $20,000,000 ($10,000,000 per block). Remarkably, just four hours after these payments were confirmed, the EFCC Chairman declared me a “Wanted Person” for “conspiracy and money laundering,” and promoted aggressively amongst all social platforms across the globe,  despite my whereabouts being well-documented and known to them. Immediately following this declaration, at about 5 pm, over 30 armed operatives invaded my home, terrorised my family, embarrassed my environment and carted away all my jewellery, safes, and personal funds in a cruel and unprofessional manner for reasons best known to them.  And with no reason for my offence. But what seemed like a  clear show of power

In April 2025, while seeking the protection the courts could offer, I filed a fundamental rights suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja. The matter was heard even in my absence and was adjourned to 29 April 2025, with the court ordering that the status quo be maintained until that date. The adjourned date of 29 April 2025 fell within the same window my lawyers had already communicated to the EFCC that I would be returning to Nigeria. It cleared the way for my return to the country on 28 April 2025. Yet upon my arrival in the early hours of that day, EFCC operatives were waiting for me at the airport, and, notwithstanding the court’s standing order, took me to their headquarters. I did not resist. I was placed in an interrogation room and, at 5 pm, presented with an asset declaration form, which I half-filled because I did not understand the context, so as to avoid any false information, even though I told them it did not apply to me as a private sector individual, but they insisted that that was the instruction given.  At 5:30 pm, I was given a bail form with conditions requiring two Level 16 civil servants and two identified properties with original Certificates of Occupancy, then detained overnight and taken to court the next day in an EFCC vehicle. The judge granted me bail and ordered my release within 24 hours. Yet, this release was inexplicably delayed by five days, needlessly prolonging my detention upon meeting my bail condition. They also disobeyed the bail granted with stipulated bail conditions by instructing that  I submit my  International passport, which I did not resist as a law-abiding citizen.

Upon finally returning home, I was confronted by the trauma my ordeal had caused my family. My mother, who had only returned 24 hours earlier from spine surgery abroad and was still in recovery, was ordered to sit for hours and was emotionally humiliated by the  EFCC operatives with no consideration for her age or health. The shock of that experience has left her health permanently compromised to this day. In response, I have since filed a further fundamental human rights action against the EFCC for breach of my rights to privacy and property.

Rather than answer for that conduct, the EFCC responded by widening its pressure on my finances. It compiled and froze every bank account linked to me and my businesses, and for nearly two years my personal and corporate accounts have remained frozen amid continuing litigation across multiple courts. When that failed to achieve its aim quickly enough, the EFCC turned to Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud Act, embarking on the tracing, seizure and forfeiture of assets connected to me, without any criminal complaint, petition, or legal foundation whatsoever. As part of the same push, a further media campaign attempted to link me to US$7,000,000 allegedly abandoned in a bank, a claim contradicted by the same clear payment tellers already submitted to NUPRC, showing $2,000,000 paid through a South African Bank in South Africa directly to NUPRC’s designated account on PPL 3007 and $5,000,000 on PPL 302 as part of Oceangate’s proof of payment, yet the EFCC nonetheless continued to press the allegation in court filings and in the social media space. In a continuous campaign to smear my character.

Having failed to sustain that particular allegation, the EFCC turned its attention to the remainder of the same NUPRC payment that my company submitted. Thirteen Million Dollars ($13,000,000) out of the total Twenty Million Dollars ($20,000,000) combined payment for both PPL 302-DO and PPL 3007 by Oceangate Oil & Gas Limited into NUPRC’s federal government account, which EFCC  also acknowledged in the motion submitted to their claim which was made subject to an ex-parte forfeiture order obtained by the EFCC at the Federal High Court, without any established case or existing petition. That order has been challenged on appeal, and I await the outcome.

On 20 January 2026, while both that appeal and my earlier suit over the first home invasion were still pending, EFCC operatives, at the directive of the Chairman, invaded my private home a second time and removed all vehicles on the premises by crane and flatbed, without regard to ownership, damage, or safety, abandoning them recklessly to the weather, with no record of offence committed. When I sought the court’s intervention for the return of all my vehicles, after 6 months and other seized personal items for almost 2 years, the EFCC, rather than defend that suit at the Federal High Court, instead again obtained a further ex parte order of forfeiture from the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory on the same suit before them.

In nearly two years, I have lost over nine international bank accounts, some with  35 years of operating history, and some less than that, without any history of suspicion on my financial activities, including my children’s international upkeep allowance account. Several financing opportunities have been cancelled as a direct consequence of the continuous, calculated smearing of my name. This has kept me in constant fear for the safety and emotional well-being of my young children. My parents have visibly aged beyond their years because of the trauma caused by the relentless and unjustified attacks against their daughter.  Without a crime identified or offence committed. Beyond the deliberate and sponsored media campaign that has sought to misrepresent my identity,  I struggle with fears of the safety and the mental states of my young children, my parents have aged 3 times ahead because of the trauma of the no reason smear of their child, apart from the misleading representation by the deliberate and sponsored damaging impact media trial of my person,  I have lost valued friendships because many fear being associated with someone falsely branded with allegations of money laundering and financial conspiracy. My reputation has been unfairly questioned, while my investments and businesses have suffered severe setbacks arising solely from the dissemination of misleading information to the Nigerian public and the international community.

This is despite the fact that, in the last five years alone, I have invested almost $90,000,000 in Nigeria’s Oil & Gas sector, funds I committed because I believe in Nigeria and in the promise of its Local Content Act and Petroleum Industry Act, both designed to support indigenous operators like myself.

I have attracted over  $100,000,000 worth of investments into the Nigerian economy because I believed and trusted in my country.  I have directly employed close to 200 Nigerians, and I invested in several charity projects through my foundation  SEF (SAM EMPOWERMENT FOUNDATION) that has successfully implemented and impacted over 1,000 health programmes, oxgen supply programmes across health centers, empowered more than one million people through its various interventions, medical bill intervention programme,  built primary health centres, schools, modern sanitary facilities for schools, water projects for communities,  in various states in Nigeria, built several mosques and churches, over two thousand Nigerians on scholarship, operating food bank for low income families,   conducted over 3,000 successful community outreach initiatives, and provided educational support to more than 10,000 children.

I made these investments in my country without ever imagining that it would become the basis upon which I would be defamed, my companies discredited, and my children made to live with diminished confidence and constant fear for the safety of their mother.

The EFCC did not stop at nothing; they also directed that my visa be revoked by the American Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, for merely declaring me wanted, which was unjustified.

It is known information that Visa revocations are initiated by the Department of State in Washington and not on the basis of an alleged inconclusive investigation. I received the email of the revocation on the   4^th of  April 2025,  seven days after I was declared wanted by the EFCC.

The most devastating and heartbreaking extended malice was communicated to the American Embassy in Bridgetown (Barbados ), the Embassy that covers my second citizenship.   I discovered the most devastating information when I could not proceed with an application for a visa on my Grenada passport, which was to enable me to attend my already booked and scheduled Harvard executive program, when I already knew that my American visa revocation was showing active only from the records in  Nigeria.  So I thought I could get a waiver, but the worst was discovered when I was told I could not until I cleared with my birth country.

This was the record:

“NIGERIAN WITH GRENADIAN CITIZENSHIP WANTED FOR MONEY LAUNDERING AND CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY. BUSINESS WOMAN AISHA ACHIMUGU, ONE OF THE THOUSANDS OF NIGERIANS APPROVED AS CITIZENS OF GRENADA UNDER THE CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT (CBI) PROGRAM BY THE DICKON MITCHELL ADMINISTRATION, WAS RECENTLY DECLARED WANTED BY NIGERIA’S ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIMES COMMISSION (EFCC). ACHIMUGU’S COMPANY, OCEANGATE OIL AND GAS ENGINEERING, SIGNED A $1.5 BILLION OIL DEAL IN GRENADA BEFORE SHE WAS DECLARED WANTED. PUBLISHED IN ‘NOW GRENADA’ MARCH, 2025.”

What could have been so bad that will lead to this level of hate and total destruction of a fellow human being and your fellow citizen who is not a harm to you, to the extent of wanting to destroy investments and relationships outside of your alleged crime?

I have never been known to be a troublemaker. I am not a criminal, and I have never been convicted of any offence. I have never been confronted with any crime that I did not own up to. I have honoured over 20 EFCC invitations, and even when it was obvious that I was being oppressed, I still respected the Constitution without being informed of my alleged crime, even as it was circulated to the public through the media. I have lost hard-earned income,  investments, businesses,  personal reputation and long-standing credible goodwill; my international collaborators have grown hesitant to work with me due to the smear impact it has caused on my person.

The deep consequences of this sustained,  damaging media trial against my person and my companies have extended far beyond Nigeria without letting me know my crime or offence.

I have asked myself repeatedly what I have done to Nigeria, to Nigerians, or to the EFCC and its Chairman to deserve this. I cry out today not because I have lost faith in the Nigerian judiciary or in the power of the Nigerian State to do justice without fear or favour, but because if it can happen to me today, no one knows who may be next tomorrow.

On Thursday the 16^th of July 2026, the EFCC under the leadership of the current Chairman took a different, dangerous media trial, by the display of several pieces of jewellery and several luxury cars with huge figures of monies displayed without any sympathy to my young children, who have me as their only parent, what could have caused this level of hate without a consideration to everything and anything.

At this point, it is obvious that the objective is not merely to wear me down, but to put my life and the lives of my young children, and the safety of my parents, at risk by constantly deliberating exposing me to continuous danger by media trial.

For all these reasons, I call on all meaningful Nigerians, the National Assembly, the Judiciary, the security services, Local and International Human Right Activists, our local and international partners to look into my situation with an open mind and demand that this continuous, malicious misleading, dangerous, and damaging public campaign/media trial against my person and the values I have stood for be corrected. Nigeria already contends with enough challenges of insecurity and economic hardship. Legitimate investors and law-abiding citizens should not have their assets seized in defiance of court orders, without any established court proceedings.

This persecution has not diminished my patriotism. I remain a proud Nigerian, grateful for the decades I spent building businesses without ever breaching the law.  Not until the year 2024 did Nigeria, the country that gave me the wings to fly and discover my capacity, under the current EFCC Chairman’s leadership, that my Nigeria became misrepresented to me.  I have faced this concerted effort to criminalise my existence,  destroy all my investments, constantly malign my character, suffer business setbacks, loss of timely return on investment already in existence,  and have my life and privacy at risk.

I believe that justice delayed is justice denied, and I am not afraid to face the law provided due process is followed. My lawyers are pursuing all legal remedies locally and internationally. I call on the media and the global business community to support a fair business environment in Nigeria and to reject the spread of defamatory and damaging information that harms the national economy.

Nigeria is our great country. Let us build it together, without hate, mischief, malice, politics or anything that would distract or divide us. There is only one option, and it should remain the only option: protect your citizens, protect the economy of our nation, and encourage and support visible businesses. No nation thrives without the involvement of its private sector. It is well established that the private sector drives every nation’s economy.

TODAY, I DECLARE WITH THE URGENCY OF A MOTHER, TO YOUNG ADULTS, PHILANTROPISTS, A PATRIOTIC CITIZEN, AN EMPLOYER OF LABOUR, AND A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE NATIONAL ECONOMY.

MY VERY EXISTENCE AND LIFE ARE IN DANGER.

MY PRIVATE LIFE AND PRIVACY ARE INVADED.

THE INNOCENCE AND SAFETY OF MY CHILDREN ARE UNDER THREAT.

THE HEALTH AND PEACE OF MY AGED PARENTS ARE BEING SACRIFICED.

THE LIVES OF ALL MY STAFF ARE IN DANGER.

MY IDENTITY GLOBALLY IS IN TERRIBLE DANGER.

MY SECURITY IS IN TERRIBLE DANGER.

MY DECADES OF INVESTMENTS IN NIGERIA ARE BEING STRANGLED.

MY COMPANIES ARE IN DANGER.

MY IMMIGRATION RIGHTS GLOBALLY ARE IN DANGER.

MY REPUTATION, MY PRIVACY, AND MY DIGNITY ARE UNDER CONSTANT SIEGE.

I bring all of this to the notice of the general public and the global community as a record, before it is too late.

MY LIFE IS AT RISK

Signed: AISHA ACHIMUGU