Call for the protection of my life, the lives of my children, the protection of my privacy, an end to the misleading media trial on my person and the companies I have built with credibility and capacity over several years, the respect of Court Orders, and the protection of over $100 Million I have within the Oil & Gas sector, and several sectors both in Nigeria and International
I, Aisha Achimugu (OFR), an Accountant and law-abiding citizen of Nigeria, (I was a wife) and now a widow of the late Engr. Sulaiman Achimugu, a man whose life was a testament to the Nigerian dream. My husband was a paragon of integrity who rose to lead the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC), retiring with a record so unblemished that it served as a beacon of transparency for the entire industry, throughout this impactful Journey I was beside him as his wife, being his wife was an addition to the values I already had from the foundation that I was born into, a foundation that had consequence to any wrongdoing. I am a mother, a daughter, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, a proven business developer, with visible progressive track records on all my businesses and visible impact in the labour space, and a contributor to national economy, who has spent decades building indigenous capacity and employing hundreds of my fellow citizens. Our family name has always been synonymous with service, yet today, that legacy is being systematically dismantled by an unrelenting and unjust assault.
Today, I am compelled to address both the local and international press in connection with what can best be described as a sustained campaign of calumny that threatens not just my personal rights to life and property, but the lives of my young children, aged parents, extended family and staff, and also the enabling environment for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Nigeria.
For nearly two years now, I have been subjected to the worst kind of oppression, character assassination, intimidation and the deliberate dissipation of my lawfully acquired personal property through the malicious actions of agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), led by its current Chairman. Such actions, which I have carefully outlined below, constitute an affront to the principles of the rule of law and natural justice, as provided in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Many have misinterpreted my long silence as fear or guilt resulting from the misleading and malicious information targeted at me. I state categorically that I refrained from speaking out purely out of personal restraint and national interest. I have always appreciated the enabling environment Nigeria provided for me to thrive over the last three decades. An example of this commitment was the immense collaboration I experienced during an international roadshow to over 30 countries to promote the then Ibaka Deep Sea Port project, that brought the visible birth of Ibom Deep Sea port a massive infrastructure initiative I proposed to the Federal Government to drive national growth. With a mere letter of expression of interest to the Ministry of Transport in port development without knowing who I was or a test to my capacity but trusted in my representation of professionalism.
Nonetheless, sometime in 2023, the Port Harcourt zonal office of the EFCC wrongly froze all my personal bank accounts, those of my children, my companies within the Felak Group, and the group account itself, having misled the Federal High Court (FHC) into granting an order of interim forfeiture, on the mistaken premise that I was a partner, associate, director or shareholder of a company called MBA Forex and Capital Investment.
In January 2024, a separate invitation letter from the EFCC raised the same MBA Forex matter again. My legal counsel and I honoured the invitation and clarified the true, limited nature of my company’s dealings with MBA. We had simply carried out and been paid for a single transaction on the company’s behalf, because the CBN had publicly declared MBA a Ponzi scheme. I held no ownership stake in MBA Forex. To close the matter, we refunded N58,000,000 relating to that transaction by bank draft to the EFCC recovery account, which I was told settled my company involvement on the investigation on the petition of the aggrieved people. which cleared the mistaken impression that I, my children and my companies were part-owners of MBA or had any stake or involvement with them.
A situation escalated rapidly in March 2025. On 4 March 2025, I received a two-line WhatsApp message from an unknown number inviting me to the EFCC’s Port Harcourt office the following day the 5th of March 2025, I called the unknown number to explain my unavailability, until third week of April , because I was abroad when I received the message. My legal counsel followed up by hand-delivering an official letter to the Port Harcourt office on 5 March 2025, on the same position with as my earlier phone call stated above, which was duly received and stamped.
Despite this, I received a series of aggressive calls and further WhatsApp messages on 9 March 2025. To ensure full transparency, my lawyer wrote directly to the EFCC Chairman in Abuja on 12 March 2025, attaching the earlier correspondence and confirming my availability for 27 and 28 April 2025. This record of correspondence definitively refutes any suggestion that I absconded, rather, I remained in constant, documented communication with the EFCC.
Yet on 10 March 2025, even as this cooperative exchange of letters was ongoing, what looked at first like an ordinary social media rumour was revealed to be a carefully planned, targeted and malicious campaign of blackmail, slander and defamation against my person, my children, my family and my businesses, flooding local and international platforms with my name and image under a false narrative.
This malicious, deliberate action was orchestrated with no regard for my contributions to the national economy and my International representation of a Nigerian Citizen.
The malicious nature of the EFCC’s actions became undeniable on 28 March 2025. On that day, my company, Oceangate Oil & Gas Limited, the winning bidder for PPL 302-DO and PPL 3007, submitted proof of payment to the NUPRC totalling $20,000,000 ($10,000,000 per block).
Remarkably, just four hours after these payments were confirmed, the EFCC Chairman declared me a “Wanted Person” for “conspiracy and money laundering,” and promoted aggressively amongst all social platform across the globe, despite my whereabouts being well-documented and known to them. Immediately following this declaration, at about 5pm over 30 armed operatives invaded my home, terrorized my family, embarrassed my environment and carted away all my jewelleries , safes, and personal funds in a cruel and unprofessional manner for reasons best known to them. And with no reason for my offence. But what seemed like a clear show of power
In April 2025, while seeking the protection the courts could offer, I filed a fundamental rights suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja. The matter was heard even in my absence and was adjourned to 29 April 2025, with the court ordering that the status quo be maintained until that date.
The adjourned date of 29 April 2025 fell within the same window my lawyers had already communicated to the EFCC that I would be returning to Nigeria. It cleared the way for my return to the country on 28 April 2025. Yet upon my arrival in the early hours of that day, EFCC operatives were waiting for me at the airport, and, notwithstanding the court’s standing order, took me to their headquarters.
I did not resist. I was placed in an interrogation room and, at 5pm, presented with an asset declaration form, which I half filled, because I did not understand the context, so to avoid any false information, even though told them it did not apply to me as a private sector individual, but they insisted that that was the instruction given.
At 5:30pm, I was given a bail form with conditions requiring two Level 16 civil servants and two identified properties with original Certificates of Occupancy, then detained overnight and taken to court the next day in an EFCC vehicle. The judge granted me bail and ordered my release within 24 hours.
Yet, this release was inexplicably delayed by five days, needlessly prolonging my detention upon meeting my bail condition. They also disobeyed the bail granted with stipulated bail condition by instructing that I submit my International passport which I did not resist as a law abiding citizen.
Upon finally returning home, I was confronted by the trauma my ordeal had caused my family. My mother, who only returned 24 hours from a spine surgery abroad and was still in recovery stage, she ordered to sit for hours and emotionally humiliated by the EFCC operatives with no consideration for her age or health, and the shock of that experience has left her health permanently compromised to this day. In response, I have since filed a further fundamental human rights action against the EFCC for breach of my rights to privacy and property.
Rather than answer for that conduct, the EFCC responded by widening its pressure on my finances. It compiled and froze every bank account linked to me and my businesses, and for nearly two years my personal and corporate accounts have remained frozen amid continuing litigation across multiple courts.
