ByLemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D

Nigeria speaks passionately about fighting corruption. Yet it repeatedly struggles to prove its most celebrated corruption allegations in court.
We have built an elaborate anti-corruption architecture. We have enacted laws, created specialised investigative units and committed considerable public resources to prosecuting financial crimes. Still, when the most consequential cases reach judgment, the outcome often raises uncomfortable questions about the competence of those entrusted with enforcing the law.
The latest judgment in the long-running Malabu Oil saga brings those questions back into national focus.
On Thursday, 15 October 2026, the Federal High Court in Abuja discharged and acquitted businessman Aliyu Abubakar, Malabu Oil and Gas Limited and six other defendants of money laundering charges linked to Oil Prospecting Licence 245. Justice Inyang Ekwo held that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
The decision closes another chapter in one of Nigeria’s most controversial oil-related prosecutions. It also exposes investigative and prosecutorial weaknesses that deserve serious public scrutiny.
Malabu is no ordinary financial dispute. At its centre is OPL 245, an immensely valuable offshore block first awarded in 1998 and later entangled in disputes involving government officials, multinational oil companies and allegations of illicit payments. The 2011 settlement involving the Federal Government, Malabu, Shell and Eni was valued at about $1.3 billion. For years, the affair drew international attention and came to symbolise Nigeria’s struggle to enforce accountability in its petroleum sector.
Yet the real significance of this judgment lies less in the size of the transactions than in the court’s assessment of the prosecution.
Justice Ekwo faulted the EFCC for pressing charges despite a 2018 advice from the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation against prosecution for insufficient evidence. The court also found that the investigation had not been concluded before the charges were filed. In related proceedings involving Abubakar, it noted deficiencies in forensic evidence, including reliance on photocopies rather than original documents.
These are not trivial procedural lapses. They strike at the foundations of criminal justice.
One principle must be stated plainly. An acquittal is not a licence to keep treating defendants as criminals in the court of public opinion. The presumption of innocence is a constitutional guarantee, not an inconvenience to be discarded whenever public anger runs high.
The defendants were entitled to insist that the prosecution prove every essential element of its case. It did not. The judgment must therefore be respected, however strongly anyone feels about the wider Malabu controversy.
But respecting an acquittal does not require silence about institutional performance.
If investigators pursue complex financial crime allegations without completing the necessary groundwork, what mechanism exists to catch such failures before defendants endure years of litigation? Who reviews the evidential foundation of major prosecutions? Who decides whether the prospect of conviction justifies the public expense? And when courts identify serious investigative failings, what consequences follow?
Nigeria must stop measuring anti-corruption success by the number of arrests, the prominence of suspects or the drama surrounding charges.
An arrest is not a conviction. An allegation is not evidence. A press conference is no substitute for a properly assembled prosecution brief.
The credibility of criminal justice rests on patient investigation, competent forensic analysis, admissible evidence and prosecutors able to present a coherent case that meets the demanding standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
There is also a constitutional question about the relationship between the EFCC and the Attorney-General.
Section 174 of the Constitution vests the Attorney General of Federation with wide powers over federal criminal proceedings, including the power to institute, take over or discontinue prosecutions, having regard to the public interest, the interests of justice and the need to prevent abuse of legal process. The EFCC, for its part, holds statutory investigative and prosecutorial powers.
Effective law enforcement requires both institutions to operate within their mandates, without bureaucratic rivalry or political interference.
Equally, the Attorney-General’s authority must never become a shield against legitimate investigation. Advice against prosecution may be entirely justified where evidence is weak, but it must itself serve the public interest. The right response is neither blind obedience nor reckless defiance. It is a transparent, legally defensible process guided by evidence, constitutional authority and professional judgment.
Repeated failures in high-profile cases carry a double danger.
They expose individuals to prolonged prosecution without adequate evidential basis. They also erode public confidence in the state’s capacity to pursue genuine wrongdoing. Both outcomes injure justice. The innocent deserve protection from wrongful prosecution, just as society deserves competent investigation where credible evidence exists.
The EFCC should treat this judgment as an occasion for serious institutional reflection, not merely another unfavourable ruling.
A thorough review of the investigation, evidential preparation and prosecution strategy is warranted. That review should separate genuine professional failings from reasonable decisions that simply did not persuade the court. Not every acquittal proves incompetence, just as not every prosecution is justified because the allegations sound grave. The distinction matters.
The National Assembly also has a legitimate oversight role. It should examine whether our anti-corruption agencies have the forensic capacity, technical expertise and internal safeguards that complex financial investigations demand.
Crimes involving multinational transactions, offshore structures and intricate banking records cannot be prosecuted on assumptions or shortcuts. They require specialised knowledge, international cooperation and painstaking preparation.
The Malabu judgment should prompt a more mature national conversation about what success in the anti-corruption fight truly means.
Nigeria does not need agencies that merely look formidable before television cameras. It needs institutions whose investigations are rigorous, whose prosecutions are fair and whose conduct inspires confidence even when verdicts disappoint the public.
The real scandal would be to learn nothing from the failures the court has identified.
The fight against corruption must itself be governed by competence, accountability and the rule of law. Otherwise, Nigeria risks becoming a country where allegations make headlines, prosecutions consume years, and justice is left to explain why the evidence was never good enough.
Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D, FIMC, CMC
Email: lemmyughegbeofficial@gmail.com
WhatsApp ONLY: +2348069716645

…As Yiaga Africa insists on accurate data for political stability

By Sam Otuonye

Amid the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its innovative and automative competences, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash Amupitan, has declared that algorithms will not decide the outcome of the 2027 general elections.

Amupitan insisted that the will of the Nigerian people, expressed through the ballot, remains the sole determinant of who governs the country.

He made the declaration while speaking at the AI and Democracy Forum 2026 in Abuja, themed “Will Algorithms Determine the 2027 Vote?: Safeguarding the 2027 General Elections in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” organized by Yiaga Africa in partnership with INEC, Google, Microsoft, European Union, UK Int’l Development, and among others.

He said technology, however sophisticated, must remain an instrument for serving human agency, institutional efficiency, and administrative transparency.

The INEC Chairman declared that “AI must remain servant, not master, of Nigerian democracy.

“Algorithms will not, and must never, decide the 2027 vote,” he asserted.

“The choice of who leads Nigeria belongs exclusively to the Nigerian people. Algorithms may predict patterns; they may optimise routes, and they may even suggest preferences. But they do not have a conscience, they do not have a country, and they do not have a vote.”

Amupitan also noted that the greatest threat to elections today is not just hacking of the process but hacking of voters’ mind through generative AI.

With exactly 92 days to the 2027 General Elections, the INEC Chairman acknowledged that AI will undeniably shape the information environment, influence electoral logistics, and alter the tactics of both democratic actors and anti-democratic disruptors.

“While algorithms will not decide the vote, AI will undeniably shape the information environment in which citizens form their choices, influence the speed and security of electoral logistics, and alter the tactics of both democratic actors and anti-democratic disruptors,” he said.

Prof. Amupitan described the 2027 General Election as the largest democratic exercise on the African continent and one of the most complex administrative undertakings in the world, with over 103 million registered voters, 176,846 polling units across 774 Local Government Areas, and multi-tiered balloting spanning presidential, national assembly, governorship, and state assembly elections.

He noted that INEC has already executed ten of the fourteen major operational milestones stipulated by the Electoral Act 2026, procured additional BVAS units, digitised candidate nominations through the INEC Candidates Nomination Portal (ICNP), processing over 15,000 nominations across 22 political parties, and introduced online voter registration for the first time in Nigeria.

The INEC Chairman outlined opportunities for AI to optimise election administration, including predictive logistics and route optimisation, automated result audit assistance, biometric database hygiene, multilingual voter engagement through Natural Language Processing, and AI-driven cybersecurity defence.

He, however, affirmed the Commission’s commitment to the Human Oversight Principle, stressing that no critical electoral decision, result collation, voter accreditation, or candidate qualification will ever be fully automated or delegated to an autonomous system.

“Human accountability, statutory oversight, and judicial review will remain paramount at every stage of the electoral chain,” he said.

In his opening remark, the Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, insisted that data integrity is paramount to achieving credible elections, emphasizing on aggregating and  sharing of accurate data. He stressed that accurate data is a significant tool for political stability. 

According to Itodo, methodological integrity, verification for transparency, and other portable tools are critical and inspire trust and confidence in the process.

The event witnessed a wide turnout of both local and international personalities within the electoral ecosystem, including the Chairperson of the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions and Chairman of Senegal’s Electoral Commission, Abdoulaye Sylla; members of the diplomatic corps; National Commissioners and Resident Electoral Commissioners; heads of sister election management bodies across Africa; international development partners; political party leaders; civil society organisations; media executives; security agencies; technology companies; and members of the academic community.

By Sam Otuonye 

 Seplat Energy has strengthened its commitment to climate action and environmental sustainability through its Tree4Life Programme, which recently achieved a major milestone with the planting of 200,000 trees, reinforcing the company’s ambition to establish one million trees by 2030.

The Tree4Life Programme is a flagship reforestation and biodiversity conservation initiative that combines environmental restoration with community development. 

According to Seplat Energy’s 2025 Social Performance Report, the programme has established nurseries containing more than 175,000 seedlings and has trained more than 300 community members in tree planting, nursery management and sustainable land-use practices.

Beyond its environmental objectives, the initiative continues to deliver meaningful socio-economic benefits. More than 350 community members have been engaged through various project activities, including site preparation, planting operations, nursery management and logistics support, creating significant economic opportunities across participating communities. The programme has also supported community capacity building and sustainable agricultural practices, helping to strengthen local livelihoods while advancing conservation efforts.

Seplat Energy’s approach emphasizes close collaboration with host communities and key stakeholders to ensure the long-term success of restoration efforts. Through continuous engagement, the company is promoting shared ownership of forest protection and environmental stewardship across project locations.

Building on the momentum generated by the planting of 200,000 trees, Seplat Energy plans to scale up the programme from 2026 as part of a broader strategy to restore degraded landscapes, enhance biodiversity and contribute to global efforts to combat climate change. The company intends to sustain phased planting activities across the project area while strengthening maintenance programmes, survival monitoring and replacement planting to maximize long-term impact.

Future plans also include expanding environmental and social baseline studies, enhancing biodiversity monitoring and strengthening the measurement and verification of carbon sequestration outcomes in line with internationally recognized standards. These efforts are expected to support the programme’s long-term goal of planting one million trees by 2030 while creating enduring environmental and social value.

The Tree4Life Programme underscores Seplat Energy’s commitment to responsible energy development, environmental sustainability and inclusive growth, demonstrating how climate action can be integrated with community empowerment to create lasting benefits for present and future generations.