For former petroleum minister under the Jonathan administration, Diezani Allison-Madueke, the road to redemption remains strewn with potholes and booby traps. Once the nation’s most powerful, she has become a pariah shunned by friends and persecuted by the government of the day on account of numerous alleged shady dealings she perpetrated when she was in charge of the nation’s money-spinning oil industry.

Since the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the nation’s anti-corruption watchdog, began to chase her, Diezani has suffered numerous bruises and bites to her ego and her hitherto sparkling reputation. It has been one tale of legal woe and financial setbacks for the woman whose current looks, like her circumstance, is haggard.

On Wednesday a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos added to her misery as it granted a temporary order of forfeiture on one of her landed properties worth ₦325 million. The suit was instigated by the EFCC against her and two other defendants, Mr Donald Chidi Amangbo and a limited liability company Mez Group Limited.

The order pertains to a vacant plot of land situated at Plot 13, Block 11, Oniru Chieftaincy Family Private Estate, Lekki, Lagos. The EFCC had argued that the land was bought with the proceeds of corruption. The presiding judge Justice Babs Kwewumi, concurring, ordered the property be temporarily forfeited to the federal government.

The court also ordered that a notice of temporary forfeiture be published in a national daily for anyone with links or vested interest in the property to come forward and show cause why the property should not be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The EFCC had through its 27-paragraph affidavit and during the hearing detailed how it had searched the offices of Donald Chidi Amangbo, SAN, a known acquaintance of Diezani and recovered documents that implicated him as a money laundering front for the former petroleum resources minister.

Among the documents allegedly recovered was a confidential report titled Highly Confidential Attorney Work Product- August Report. The report allegedly contained the names and addresses of 18 companies and several properties located in United Kingdom, Nigeria and United States of America. Amangbo, under questioning, had allegedly revealed that those companies are used to purchase properties at home and abroad on behalf of Diezani.