The Supreme Court has confirmed the final seizure of N1.582 billion tied to a former National Coordinating Consultant of the Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Steve Ogidan, in favor of the federal government.
This decision was made on 19 June by a five-member panel led by Justice Habeeb Abiru. They supported a previous ruling from the Court of Appeal, which had upheld the seizure order from the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) announced this on Monday through its Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale. They stated that the Supreme Court found Mr Ogidan’s appeal to lack merit and dismissed it.
The court also ordered the former consultant to pay N5 million to the EFCC as the cost of the case. Justice Abiru pointed out that Mr Ogidan and others connected to the case had previously returned the disputed funds as part of an out-of-court settlement. This fact strengthened the trial court's decision to order the final seizure.
The case started after an EFCC investigation. The commission stated it found reasonable grounds to suspect that the N1.582 billion was from illegal activities. They alleged that Mr Ogidan took bribes from consultants he was supposed to supervise while serving as NIRSAL’s National Coordinating Consultant.
Following its findings, the EFCC went to the Federal High Court in Abuja through its lawyer, Ndeh Isotu, to seek the seizure of the funds. On 5 February 2024, Judge I. E. Ekwo granted an interim seizure order, which later became final.
Mr Ogidan challenged this decision at the Court of Appeal. He argued that the trial court wrongly relied on Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act when ordering the seizure of the money for the Federal Government.
In a unanimous ruling on 20 June 2025, after hearing the appeal on 10 April 2025, the Court of Appeal, led by Okon Abang, dismissed the appeal and confirmed the seizure order. Now, the Supreme Court has upheld that ruling, effectively ending the legal battle.
The EFCC also revealed that between December 2015 and June 2021, eight companies linked to Mr Ogidan received a total of N9.6 billion from NIRSAL. These companies include Successory Nigeria Limited, Beresh Consulting Limited, Blue Accord Nigeria Limited, Global Knowledge Consulting Limited, Freshvine Agribiz Limited, Richtigen Limited, O Stevens Consulting, and Proteus and Enterprise Aesthetics.
NIRSAL was set up by the Central Bank of Nigeria to promote lending to the agricultural sector by lowering risks for financial institutions. Recently, the agency has faced criticism over consultancy payments and contracts awarded between 2015 and 2021.
The forfeiture case involving Mr Ogidan is one of the prominent cases from the EFCC’s investigation into these transactions. The anti-graft agency has insisted that some payments made to consultants and their linked companies were from corrupt practices, a claim now supported by the country’s highest court regarding the N1.582 billion seizure.
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