The architecture of despoliation, wherein the Nigerian State abandons the tedious inconvenience of the judicial process and a court trial to embrace the profitable efficiency of confiscation under the guise of “reasonable suspicion” speaks directly to a distinct, metallic flavor to Nigerian justice these days. We have entered the era of the “non-conviction-based” expropriation; a judicial innovation that allows the state to strip a citizen of his property not because he has been convicted of a crime by a court of competent jurisdiction, but because a bureaucrat has found his bank account aesthetically offensive.
This week, the judicial monstrosity reached a crescendo. On Wednesday, Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the final forfeiture of over 40 properties linked to former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami. But the trend is now institutionalized. Just days later, on Friday, July 17, 2026, the Supreme Court of Nigeria delivered a unanimous judgment that effectively codified this “spoils of war” jurisprudence. Led by Justice Ibrahim Mohammed Saulawa, the apex court set aside an appellate victory for former Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele, restoring a trial court order that stripped him of seven luxury properties in Lagos, an industrial complex in Delta State, and $2.045 million in cash. The rationale? The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) harbors a “reasonable suspicion” that these assets were acquired through unlawful activities.
Let us pause to admire the breathtaking audacity of this phrase. In a civilized jurisdiction, “reasonable suspicion” is the threshold for a search warrant or a brief detention. In Tinubu’s Nigeria of 2026, it is a plenary power of expropriation. It is the legal equivalent of a magician’s wand: one wave, and a private fortune vanishes into the gaping maw of the Federal Government, all without the tiresome necessity of a witness, a prosecutor, or heaven forbid, a conviction.
Consider the mechanics of the Emefiele ruling. The EFCC’s case rested entirely on an affidavit by one David Jayeoba, claiming the assets were “reasonably suspected” to be proceeds of crime. Under Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud Act, the burden of proof effectively vanished. The Supreme Court has now signaled that if the state suspects you, you are already dispossessed; the only question remaining is whether you can prove, against the infinite resources of the state, that you are not a thief.
If the state possesses evidence sufficient to convince the Supreme Court that these assets; from the duplexes in Ikoyi to the Queensdorf Global Fund share certificates, are the “proceeds of crime,” why is Emefiele not currently in jail or facing prosecution?
The sheer scale of the Malami forfeiture, valued at over ₦213 billion, is a testament to the man’s industriousness, regardless of whether that industry was licit or predatory. Yet, the absurdity remains: if the state possesses evidence sufficient to convince a High Court that these assets are the “proceeds of crime,” why is Malami himself not currently in the dock of a criminal court? To seize the property while leaving the alleged thief at liberty is a paradox that defies common sense and mocks the constitutional presumption of innocence. It suggests a regime that is uninterested in the delivery of justice, but intensely focused on the recycling of capital. It is a polite, procedural form of highway robbery, dressed in the ermine robes of the judiciary.
We are witnessing the weaponization of the Advance Fee Fraud Act—a law originally intended to combat the international scammers who once tarnished our national reputation—now repurposed as a bludgeon against political rivals. By invoking Section 17, the Tinubu administration has discovered that it is far easier to bankrupt an opponent through civil forfeiture than to defeat him through the rigorous, evidentiary standards of a criminal trial. Why bother proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt when you can simply shift the burden to the accused to prove that his money is “legitimate”? Let us not be naive about the provenance of this fervor. The EFCC has long functioned as the praetorian guard of whichever faction currently holds the keys to the Villa. Under previous dispensations, the agency’s targets were selected with a precision that bordered on the artistic; today, the scythe merely swings in the direction of the political currents.
Malami and Emefiele are, by any objective measure, figures whose tenures left much to be desired in the annals of administrative probity. But the law is not a tool for settling scores; it is the only barrier between the citizenry and the arbitrary power of the state. When the state treats the judiciary as a mere rubber stamp for its property-acquisition schemes, it destroys the very rule of law it claims to be upholding. If the EFCC can take a man’s university, his hotels, and his family home based on a hunch, there is no private citizen in this country who is safe. Today, the law comes for a former AGF and a central banker; tomorrow, it may come for a journalist, a businessman, or an activist whose “reasonable suspicion” score has suddenly spiked in the eyes of the agency.
The legislature, predictably, snores through this transformation. Our National Assembly, which possesses the oversight powers to interrogate the EFCC’s methodologies and demand an accounting of these forfeited assets, is far too busy debating its own emoluments to notice that the judiciary has become an engine of state-sponsored asset stripping. Where do these billions go? Which accounts are credited when a hotel in Jabi is forfeited? When the state acts as the accuser, the judge, and the beneficiary, the inherent conflict of interest is so glaring it should be blinding. The “Federal Government” has effectively become a venture capitalist, funding its operations through the systemic looting of its own political class.
We are regressing to a pre-legal state of nature, where possession is nine-tenths of the law, and the remaining tenth is held by the man with the most aggressive arrest warrant. If the Tinubu administration wishes to convince the public that it is fighting corruption rather than merely consolidating loot, it must abandon the cowardly shortcut of civil forfeiture. Charge the suspects. Present the evidence in open court. Let the accused mount a defense. Until then, these forfeiture orders are nothing more than political theater. The stench of the “odor” we noted earlier in the PFIPC scandal has now moved into the courtrooms. The judiciary is no longer the last refuge of the oppressed; it has become the clearinghouse for the spoils of war. And in this war, the only true victim is the idea that Nigeria might one day be governed by laws, rather than by the predatory instincts of its masters.
