EFCC chairman laments the fact he is not able to prosecute Diezani after seizing 80 houses from her

ECONOMIC and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa has revealed that the agency is unhappy about the fact that it has been unable to prosecute former petroleum minister Diezani Alison-Madueke because she is out of its jurisdiction.

Oil minister during the tenure of former president Dr Goodluck Jonathan, Ms Alison-Madueke has been the subject of a series of corruption probes, with the federal high court in Nigeria confiscating some of her assets and handing them over to the government. Under investigation both in Nigeria and the UK, Ms Alison-Madueke, who was in office between 2011 and 2015, has been accused of participating in largescale corruption, including using her position to allocate lucrative oil wells to close associates worth billions of dollars.

Since leaving office, Ms Alison-Madueke has taken refuge in the UK, where she was arrested and granted bail pending the filing of formal charges against her. Ms Alison-Madueke  has been asked to forfeit UK properties worth over £11m and been forced to forfeit about N7.6bn hidden in a Nigerian bank to the government, amid claims that she cannot account for a sum of $2.5bn that went missing under her watch as minister.

Mr Bawa added that the challenges associated with bringing Deizani home to face justice remained an obstacle to the commission. He revealed that the commission had recovered $153m and no fewer than 80 choice property valued at $80m from the former minister who had been living in Britain since leaving office in 2015.

“There are several cases surrounding Diezani’s case. I was part of that investigation and we have done quite a lot. In one of the cases, we recovered $153m, we have secured the final forfeiture of over 80 property in Nigeria valued at about $80m,” Mr Bawa said.