The Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has vacated the interim order freezing 124 bank accounts belonging to businesswoman Aisha Achimugu and companies linked to her, describing the retention of the ex parte order for more than 15 months as an abuse of court process.
In a unanimous judgment delivered on Wednesday, a three-member panel comprising Justices Muhammad Ibrahim Sirajo, Ishaq Mohammed Sani and Eleojo Enenche discharged the interim freezing order earlier granted by the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt on April 10, 2025.
The appeal stemmed from a suit filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, challenging the Federal High Court’s ruling of August 27, 2025.
Justice Turaki Adamu of the Federal High Court had granted the EFCC’s ex parte application freezing 124 bank accounts linked to Achimugu, founder of Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd, and restrained banks from allowing outward transactions on the accounts.
Achimugu later asked the court to set aside the order, arguing that it amounted to an abuse of court process. She also alleged that despite the subsisting freezing order, the EFCC directed SunTrust Bank through a letter dated April 24, 2025, to transfer funds from one of the affected accounts to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, recovery account.
On August 27, 2025, the Federal High Court ruled that the transfer of N1.8 billion from account number 0001313173 domiciled in SunTrust Bank to the CBN/EFCC recovery account was unlawful and ordered that the funds be returned immediately.
The anti-graft agency appealed the decision on three grounds, arguing that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to deliver its judgment during the annual long vacation, denied it fair hearing by granting an unsolicited relief, and failed to properly evaluate affidavit evidence relating to the affected accounts and their balances.
Responding to the appeal, Achimugu’s legal team maintained that the lower court acted within its powers by ordering the reversal of funds allegedly transferred in violation of its subsisting freezing order.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Sirajo held that delivering a reserved judgment during the court’s annual vacation did not amount to conducting general legal business and did not occasion any miscarriage of justice.
The appellate court also dismissed the EFCC’s claim that it was denied fair hearing, noting that both parties had filed additional affidavits on the disputed transfer before the lower court.
The court further ruled that a court which grants a freezing order has the authority to issue consequential orders necessary to preserve the subject matter of the case.
However, on the disputed N1.8 billion transfer, the Court of Appeal held that the account from which the funds were moved was not among those covered by the freezing order issued on April 10, 2025.
The court noted that the freezing order covered current accounts belonging to Drive.FGC.Net and Felak Concepts Ltd with balances of N50.5 million and N16.2 million respectively, while the N1.8 billion was held in a fixed deposit account alongside N7.79 billion in separate internal ledger accounts.
According to the court, the trial judge failed to establish how the current account with a balance of about N50 million generated the N1.8 billion transferred to the recovery account.
It consequently set aside the Federal High Court’s order directing the reversal of the N1.8 billion, holding that the evidence did not show the money originated from any account covered by the freezing order.
The appellate court, however, clarified that its decision should not be interpreted as validating the EFCC’s directive for the transfer of the funds.
On Achimugu’s substantive application, the Court of Appeal held that allowing the interim ex parte freezing order to remain in force for over 15 months defeated the purpose of such orders, which are meant to preserve funds only for a limited period pending the hearing of a motion on notice.
The court subsequently discharged and vacated in its entirety the interim freezing order issued by the Federal High Court on April 10, 2025, against Achimugu and the companies linked to her.
