Chapter I · Money
Cases where public funds were taken from the Federal treasury. Adjudicated or officially found by a competent body — court, commission of inquiry, or audit authority. Never asserted, never inferred.
Former IGP convicted on 8 of 70 counts; ~₦15bn forfeited via plea bargain. Federal High Court Abuja, FHC/ABJ/CR/14/2005 (Sankey J., 22 November 2005).
₦15bn forfeited
$182m in bribes paid to Nigerian officials by the TSKJ consortium (Technip, Snamprogetti, Kellogg/Halliburton, JGC) for the Bonny Island LNG contracts. KBR/Halliburton settled with US DOJ for $579m (Feb 2009). Nigerian prosecutions stalled.
$182m bribes · $579m DOJ settlement
Ad-hoc committee (Lawan Report): ₦1.7tn paid for fuel not delivered, 2009–2011. Some prosecutions, no major conviction at FHC level.
₦1.7tn unaccounted
$20bn alleged unremitted by NNPC per Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (CBN). PwC forensic audit confirms $1.48bn direct shortfall; disputes around the residual.
$1.48bn audited shortfall
Office of the National Security Adviser arms-procurement funds diverted; multiple convictions; case files pending across FHC and state courts.
$2.1bn
Former Governor of Delta State (1999–2007). Acquitted on 170 counts at the Federal High Court Asaba (2009) but convicted in the United Kingdom (Southwark Crown Court, 17 April 2012) on 10 counts of fraud and money-laundering. Pleaded guilty; sentenced to 13 years. UK courts traced and forfeited assets worth over £101.5m attributable to Ibori and his network.
£101.5m+ traced · 13 yrs UK sentence
Former Governor of Bayelsa State (1999–2005). Arrested at Heathrow on 15 September 2005 with £1m cash and properties worth £10m+ restrained; jumped bail in November 2005 (the apocryphal 'disguised as a woman' escape) and returned to Nigeria. Impeached 9 December 2005. Pleaded guilty before FHC Lagos (26 July 2007) to 6 counts; assets in UK, South Africa, Denmark, Cyprus and the US forfeited. Controversially pardoned by President Goodluck Jonathan, 12 March 2013.
£10m+ forfeited · pardoned 2013
EFCC recovered $43,449,947, £27,800, ₦23,218,000 from Flat 7B, Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, on 12 April 2017. Federal High Court Lagos ordered final forfeiture in November 2017; the NIA claimed ownership.
$43.4m + others
Process & Industrial Developments Ltd obtained a 2017 arbitral award of $6.6bn plus interest (≈ $11bn by 2023) against Nigeria for an aborted 2010 Gas Supply & Processing Agreement. On 23 October 2023 the English Commercial Court (Knowles J., [2023] EWHC 2638 (Comm)) set the award aside, finding it was procured by fraud and bribery — Nigeria's largest-ever litigation reversal.
$11bn → set aside
Abdulrasheed Maina, ex-Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, convicted FHC Abuja (Abang J., 8 Nov 2021) on 12 counts of money laundering. 8-year sentence; ₦2bn forfeiture.
₦2bn forfeited
EFCC tracing of ₦19.3bn Sterling Bank-held salary-bailout funds linked to a then-sitting governor; Supreme Court ruling on freezing of state funds.
₦19.3bn probed
EFCC operatives, investigating the $2.1bn arms-procurement scandal, exhumed $1,000,000 in cash from a soakaway pit at the Badagry residence of former Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu (rtd). A further ₦3bn was traced to bank accounts in his wife's name.
$1m exhumed from septic tank
An accounts clerk at the JAMB office in Makurdi, Benue State, claimed a 'mysterious snake' had entered the vault and swallowed ₦36,000,000 of scratch-card revenue. JAMB Registrar Prof. Is-haq Oloyede confirmed the missing sum; the clerk was suspended and prosecuted.
₦36m — 'spiritually consumed'
Senator Shehu Sani (APC, Kaduna Central) told reporters that ₦70,000,000 belonging to the Northern Senators' Forum had been 'swallowed by monkeys' at a ranking senator's farmhouse. The claim — widely understood as a satirical deflection — followed the removal of Sen. Abdullahi Adamu as Forum chairman over the missing funds.
₦70m — 'eaten by monkeys'
During the 8 August 2023 ministerial screening, Senate President Godswill Akpabio cut the microphone of Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe as he tried to question nominee Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo about an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission investigation linking his firm, New Planet Project Ltd, to ₦438.1m allegedly diverted from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs (the Sadiya Umar Farouq probe). Ojo was confirmed Minister of Interior the same day. The episode entered the record as a parliamentary cover-up — public funds whose disappearance the Senate refused to interrogate.
₦438.1m question silenced on the floor
Tier 1 · primary
Courts. Gazettes. National archives.
Tier 2 · corroborating
OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.
Tier 4 · tertiary, flagged
Wikipedia only where primary is pending. Always labelled.