Forgery Trial: Ozekhome secures prosecution’s backing for foreign travel bid, judge rules Thursday
The FCT High Court in Maitama, Abuja, on Tuesday, set Thursday for ruling on an application by senior lawyer Mike Ozekhome to travel to the United Kingdom on health grounds.
The FCT High Court in Maitama, Abuja, on Tuesday, set Thursday for ruling on an application by senior lawyer Mike Ozekhome to travel to the United Kingdom on health grounds.
This came after Mr Ozekhome, who is facing forgery and impersonation charges, secured the agreement of the prosecution team not to oppose the request to travel.
Trial judge Chizoba Oji ordered the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) to produce Mr Ozekhome’s passport and that of his co-defendant after it emerged during Tuesday’s proceedings that the documents had not been deposited at the court’s registry.
It came to the judge’s knowledge on Tuesday that the prosecution (office of the AGF) had withheld and failed to deposit the defendants’ passports as part of the bail conditions the court in February.
The judge ordered that the prosecution should “unfailingly produce the two international passports to the court as directed.”
On 27 February, the office of the AGF arraigned Mr Ozekhome and his co-defendant, Ponfa Useni, on 12 counts of forgery and impersonation, which stemmed from a messy battle over property ownership in the United Kingdom.
The judge subsequently granted bail to each of the duo in the sum of N10 million one surety each. The judge also ordered that passorts of the defendants should be submitted to the court.
Earlier during the travel application hearing, Mr Ozekhome’s lawyer, Ferdinand Orbih, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), informed the court that his client needed his passport to travel to the United Kingdom for medical reasons.
Mr Orbih said, based on the recommendations of a doctor in the UK, the trip was expected to last six weeks. He promised that Mr Ozekhome would return the passport three days after he returned from the medical trip.
The prosecution lawyer, Aisha Tahir, did not oppose the application. The judge then asked the prosecution about the whereabouts of the passports of the defendants. Ms Tahir replied that it was with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The judge then asked that the passports be brought in an hour. However, the prosecution did not appear in court until two hours later without the passports.
Ms Tahir informed the court of the difficulty in reaching the investigation officer and pleaded for an adjournment of the matter to provide ample time to produce the passport.
Mr Orbih did not raise any objection, prompting the judge to adjourn the matter until Thursday for the submission of the passport and ruling on the application.
Mr Ozekhome and Ponfa Useni are facing 12 counts of impersonation and forgery charges.
Ponfa Useni is the son of the late Jeremiah Useni who served as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during the regime of former military dictator, the late Sani Abacha.
The older Mr Useni, who died in January 2025, owned the London property in question under the fictitious name Tali Shani, and his purported attempt to transfer its ownership to Mr Ozekhome allegedly led to the presentation of documents, which the property tribunal in London found to be forged to support the false identities of Tali Shani.
In the eight charges filed regarding the messy property battle, Nigerian authorities accused Mr Ozekhome and Ponfa efendants conspiring in 2020 alongside the late Jeremiah Useni, a retired general, and made a false Nigerian passport with number A07535463 and name Tali Shani. They allegedly presented the forged passport purpportedly issued by the Nigerian Immigration Service to claim a property in the United Kingdom.
Similarly, the prosecution charged them with “using a false passport to facilitate the claim of the property.”
The prosecution also alleged that Mr Ozekhome helped Ponfa Useni to impersonate Tali Shani in 2020. The prosecution said they created a fake “Irrevocable Power of Attorney” to help Mr Ozekhome claim the property.
Mr Ozekhome’s prosecution in Nigeria stems from a London tribunal’s judgement that blocked him from claiming a property in North London in September 2025.
In August 2021, Mr Ozekhome sought to transfer the property to his name, claiming it was a gift from a man who presented himself as Tali Shani in appreciation for legal services.
But this was challenged in September 2022 by Westfields Solicitors, claiming to represent “Ms Tali Shani,” who insisted she was the registered owner of the property since 1993 and had never signed any transfer.
Ruling on the dispute, Judge Paton of the UK Tribunal ruled that the house was secretly bought in 1993 by the late Mr Useni, former Nigerian Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, using a false identity.
According to the tribunal, Mr Ozekhome’s steps to claim the property were built on a network of fraud, impersonation, and forged documents. Still, it concluded that the late Mr Useni, former Minister of FCT, was the genuine purchaser of the property in 1993.
Similarly, the London tribunal uncovered fraudulent Nigerian identity records, including a passport, a National Identification Number (NIN), and a Tax Identification Number (TIN) allegedly generated with the connivance of corrupt officials at the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the Immigration Service, and the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
These developments prompted the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee to suspend Mr Ozekhome’s SAN rank pending the completion of a disciplinary hearing.
Two prosecution witnesses have testified so far in the trial before the FCT High Court.
In March, the first prosecution witness, a Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) officer, testified that the passport with the name Tali Shani was fake.
Akim Aridegbe, a principal staff officer to the Comptroller-General of the NIS, said the passport was not issued by the NIS.
Despite the passport sharing features of a genuine copy, it has no record in the NIS database, Mr Aridegbe said.
Similarly, the second witness, Bamaiyi Mairiga, a forensic examiner, also testified that the passport was fake.
On Monday, Mr Ozekhome’s lawyer grilled Mr Mairiga during cross-examination and elicited answers from the witness on the technical procedures and the general principles of the probe he conducted into the forgery allegations against the defendants.
The witness maintained that his examination revealed that the Tali Shani passport was fake.
