The wife of a former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Alhaja Moroophat Obanikoro is in hot soup. A Federal Capital Territory High Court, sitting in Jabi, Abuja, has ordered that she should forfeit her property pending the outcome of investigations into her husband and children.

Investigations into the $2.1bn arms scam, involving the Office of the National Security Adviser, the EFCC had traced the transfer of about N4.7bn to the Diamond Bank account of Sylvan McNamara, a company allegedly owned by Obanikoro’s two sons – Gbolahan and Babajide. Out of the N4.7bn, Obanikoro allegedly gave N3.880bn to Ayodele Fayose and Senator Iyiola Omisore in July 2014. Obanikoro allegedly kept over N600m to himself.

The EFCC therefore seized a property located at 44 Mamman Kotangora Crescent, Katampke Extension, Abuja, belonging to Alhaja Moroophat Obanikoro. However, Obanikoro’s wife told EFCC that she bought the property over seven years before the alleged arms scam took place and EFCC had no right to punish her for any crime allegedly committed by her husband and urged the court to award her N200m.

She also demanded “an order setting aside the sealing of the property; an order directing the EFCC to tender an unreserved public apology for the unlawful and unconditional invasion of the aforesaid property and the sum of N200,000,000 as general damages for the unlawful and unconstitutional invasion of the property.” But the EFCC claimed that Obanikoro’s wife could not claim to be ignorant of her husband’s alleged crime.