Appeal Court Unfreezes Aisha Achimugu’s 124 Bank Accounts

The court also rejected the EFCC’s arguments that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to deliver its ruling during the annual court vacation and that the anti-graft agency was denied a fair hearing.

The Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt has discharged the interim order freezing 124 bank accounts linked to businesswoman and Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd founder, Aisha Achimugu, ruling that the restriction could not remain in force indefinitely.

In a unanimous judgment delivered on Wednesday, a three-member panel held that the ex parte order, obtained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on April 10, 2025, had outlived its temporary purpose and should be vacated.

The appellate court, however, partly upheld the EFCC’s appeal by setting aside an earlier Federal High Court order directing the reversal of N1.8 billion transferred from one of the accounts to the CBN/EFCC recovery account. The justices ruled that the account from which the funds were moved was not among those covered by the original freezing order.

The court also rejected the EFCC’s arguments that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to deliver its ruling during the annual court vacation and that the anti-graft agency was denied a fair hearing.

In its decision on the substantive application, the appellate court described the continued enforcement of the ex parte freezing order for more than 15 months as an abuse of court process and contrary to the rule of law.

It stressed that ex parte freezing orders are intended only as temporary measures pending the hearing of all parties and ordered that the restrictions on Achimugu’s accounts and those of companies linked to her be lifted in their entirety.