EFCC plans to re-arraign three National Assembly officials over N337m fraud

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday aimed to re-arraign three senior officials of the National Assembly at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Jikwoyi, Abuja. They are facing claims of stealing N337 million that belongs to the legislature.

The accused are Aishatu El-Nafaty, Director of Public Affairs in the Directorate of Special Duties and Parliamentary Security; Mamud Abubakar, a former Permanent Secretary at the National Assembly; and Igba Joseph, Deputy Director of Procurement.

The EFCC wanted to re-arraign these three on 23 amended charges including conspiracy, forgery, criminal breach of trust, official corruption, and illegal conversion of public funds. The trial judge is Muhammed Zubairu.

But the re-arraignment did not happen. The lawyer for the second defendant, Muhammed Ndayako, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), filed a preliminary objection against parts of the amended charges.

In a statement from the EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, the defence lawyer asked the court to remove counts three, four, five, six, seven, and 18 from the indictment dated 8 October 2025. He claimed these counts were not valid and tried to bring back counts that the court had already quashed on 12 May 2025.

In response, the prosecution lawyer, Francis Usani, criticized the timing of the objection. He said he received the objection only on Friday, 5 June, even though the defendants had over a month since the last adjournment to submit it.

Mr Usani told the court that he planned to file a formal response. He asked the court to dismiss the objection as it was just meant to delay the re-arraignment. He also asked the judge to make the defendants take their plea on the amended charges.

Charges

The amended charge states that the defendants allegedly conspired from 2017 to 2019 to commit criminal breach of trust while serving as public officials in the National Assembly.

One charge claims that Mrs El-Nafaty wrongfully moved N89.87 million given to her from the National Assembly management overhead and general services accounts into her personal account at SunTrust Bank.

The EFCC also accused her of forging receipts from Fazah Integrated Services Limited between 2017 and 2018 to falsely show payments made, intending to pass these documents as real.

These actions are said to go against the relevant laws in the Penal Code and are punishable under those laws.

During the proceedings on Monday, the first defendant showed her intention to file a similar preliminary objection. Mr Zubairu ordered her to file the application within 48 hours and told the prosecution to respond. He said the court would look into the objections in the interest of justice before moving on with the amended charges.

He then postponed the case until 23 September to hear the preliminary objections. This case has been in court for a while and has seen changes to the original charges along with legal challenges from the defence. The latest postponement means the court will first decide if the disputed counts can remain before the defendants have to enter new pleas.