A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has set aside an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission report that accused Abuja lawyer Ted Iseghohi-Edwards of fraud in the London and Paris Club refunds, reopening one of the longest-running disputes over public money owed to Nigeria’s states and 774 local governments. Delivering judgment in Garki on Tuesday, Justice Suleiman Belgore held that the Federal Government acted beyond its powers when it directed the anti-graft agency to investigate court judgments that had ordered payment to the lawyer. The judge described the EFCC report as an affront to the authority of the court.
“The law and the court must be respected. They are both official and statutory,” Justice Belgore held. He said it was not within the powers of the respondents to use the report to impugn the integrity of the court by claiming that the judgment had been obtained fraudulently. If the government believed the judgments were flawed, the judge said, its proper course was to apply to have them set aside.
The suit was a fundamental rights action filed by Iseghohi-Edwards against the EFCC, the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Inspector-General of Police and the Federal Government. He challenged his arrest, detention and repeated threats of prosecution over an EFCC report dated August 14, 2024, titled “Re: Request for investigation report on London-Paris Club matters”. Justice Belgore granted 20 of the 21 reliefs sought and issued a perpetual injunction barring the respondents from arresting, detaining, prosecuting or harassing the lawyer over the refunds dispute.
The court found that the 2024 report conflicted with earlier findings by both the EFCC and the Department of State Services in 2016, which had cleared the lawyer. Justice Belgore held that the agencies could not, years later, issue a contradictory report to overturn their own conclusions. He also found a valid contract between Iseghohi-Edwards and the Incorporated Trustees of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), noting that the terms of engagement were renegotiated by the parties in open court on September 15, 2016.
At the heart of the case is a $159 million professional fee for legal and consultancy services to the councils. The Federal Government settled the claim through 10 promissory notes of $15.9 million each, issued under former President Muhammadu Buhari after a DSS clearance and in compliance with an order of mandamus by the Federal High Court. Justice Belgore held that the notes were validly issued. The lawyer had also gone to court in the United States seeking to have them dematerialised, and counsel to the EFCC told the court that the 2024 report followed that action.
The refunds themselves date back three decades. Between 1995 and 2002, the Federal Government deducted more than was due from the Federation Account allocations of states and local governments to service Paris Club, London Club and multilateral debts. Nigeria later secured a debt relief deal with the Paris Club in October 2005, by which time several states had already been overcharged, according to the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The Buhari administration began paying back the over-deductions in late 2016. The ministry put the first release, approved in December 2016, at N516.38 billion, conditional on states spending at least half on salaries and pensions. A further N243.8 billion followed in July 2017, with a condition that states owing workers apply at least 75 per cent to salary and pension arrears.
The consultants’ claims became a separate and bitter fight. Former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami maintained that the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and ALGON had agreed to a consent judgment of $3.2 billion in 2013 and made part payments in 2016 and 2017. The government later moved to settle about $418 million owed to several consultants through promissory notes funded from deductions to state and council allocations over 10 years, and Iseghohi-Edwards was among the named creditors.
The governors resisted. They insisted the states were not parties to any contract or suit on the refunds and therefore owed nobody, and the forum put the consultants’ total claim at about $418.95 million. Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court dismissed their suit in March 2022 on the ground that they had not shown the governors authorised it, and the states appealed. ALGON had at various points also written to the Attorney-General querying the claims of Iseghohi-Edwards and others.
Tuesday’s judgment does not settle every question in the long saga. It clears one lawyer of criminal allegations and voids one EFCC report, but the wider dispute over the $418 million in consultants’ claims has moved through several courts with mixed outcomes. No appeal by the EFCC or the Attorney-General against the latest ruling had been made public as of Wednesday.
Counsel to Iseghohi-Edwards, Idumodin Ogumu, commended the judge and urged government agencies to obey court decisions. For the 774 councils on whose behalf the refunds were pursued, the case remains a reminder that money recovered for the grassroots has spent nearly a decade tied up in litigation, investigations and competing claims.