Justice Musa Kakaki of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Monday, September 15, 2025, dismissed an application filed by a businesswoman, Aminah Momoh-Orimoloye, seeking her release from the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Momoh-Orimoloye, a United Kingdom citizen and coordinator of the Economic Empowerment of Women and Youth in Livestock Agriculture (EEWYLA) was arrested on August 5, 2025, following a petition alleging conspiracy and diversion of funds.
The petitioner alleged that he was engaged by his customers for a foreign exchange transaction, to the tune of N1.663 billion, but he had exceeded his transfer limit of the day.
He said that he contacted his friend, Abdullahi Bala Muhammed, to seek his consent to nominate his account for the said sum to be paid to him.
The sum of N1.663 billion was paid into Muhammed’s account and when the petitioner requested Muhammed to transfer the funds to him, he only transferred the sum of N1.163 billion and had since been coming up with one excuse or the other regarding the N500 million balance.
Preliminary investigation, however, revealed that Momoh-Orimoloye, Muhammed, Auwal Ali and others at large allegedly conspired to divert the balance of ₦500 million.
Momoh-Orimoloye, through her lawyer, Abimbola Akeredolu, SAN, had urged the court to order her release, claiming that her detention violated her fundamental rights.
She had further alleged that the bail conditions imposed by the EFCC were excessive.
The EFCC, in a 29-paragraph counter-affidavit deposed to by John Justice, an investigator with the Commission, however, urged the court to dismiss her application for lacking in merit.
Moving the application, the EFCC counsel, S.I.Suleiman, maintained that the suspect presented questionable sureties and attempted to mislead investigators.
He also stated that “upon granting the applicant bail, in line with the rule of law, the EFCC obtained a valid remand warrant to enable it have the authority to keep her in its custody pending when she gets reliable sureties to fulfill the conditions of her administrative bail.
“The applicant presented unreliable sureties, who were discovered to have deliberately given false information to the EFCC, all in a desperate bid to secure her release without fully fulfilling conditions of the administrative bail.
”She presented one Aliu Adekunle John who, upon interview, confirmed that he was approached to make false representation to officers of the EFCC that he is her family member.”
Suleiman further informed the court that the suspect “remains a flight risk, given her foreign residency.”
In his ruling, Justice Kakaki dismissed the application, noting that the EFCC had already granted an administrative bail to the suspect, but that she failed to provide credible sureties as required by law.
Justice Kakaki also held that her inability to meet her bail conditions could not be construed as a violation of her rights.
“Having been granted bail, what the applicant ought to do is fulfill the bail terms,” the judge ruled.
