Fresh evidence has emerged showing that a key document presented by prominent Nigerian lawyer Mike Ozekhome to a London tribunal to claim ownership of a house in North London was a fake, triggering criminal charges against the senior advocate.
Ironically, the document was admitted by the British court as genuine because there was no evidence to the contrary. The issuing authority in Nigeria has now confirmed that the document is fake.
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The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) confirmed that a Nigerian passport submitted as evidence in the high-profile property dispute was never legitimately issued.
In a letter to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the NIS stated that the passport booklet number A07535463, presented to support Mr Ozekhome’s ownership claim, was never utilised due to a defect and consequently has no record of a holder in its database.
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“The said booklet was reported stolen and was never personalised. Consequently, it does not exist in the Service’s Electronic Management System, and no Certified True Copy is available,” the NIS said.
The agency’s preliminary findings indicated that the passport booklet had personal data “unlawfully superimposed on it with numerous inconsistencies on the data page, suggesting significant irregularities in its production.”
Judge Ewan Paton of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) had admitted the passport as genuine evidence during the UK proceedings. In his September 2025 judgment, the judge noted that a man named Tali Shani existed and gave evidence in that name.
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“A certified copy of an official Nigerian passport was produced both to the Land Registry and this Tribunal, stating that Mr. Tali Shani was born on 2nd April 1973. I do not have the evidence, or any sufficient basis, to find that this document – unlike the various poor and pitiful forgeries on the side of the ‘Applicant’ – is forged, and I do not do so,” the judge had stated.
However, the NIS findings have now established that the passport was indeed fraudulent.
Criminal Charges Filed
Relying on the NIS findings, the ICPC has filed criminal charges against Mr Ozekhome at the Federal High Court in Abuja over allegations of receiving property through corrupt means and using forged documents.
The charges were filed on 16 January by Ngozi Onwuka of the ICPC High Profile Prosecution Department, following calls for the commission to prosecute the senior lawyer.
Court documents seen by PREMIUM TIMES show that Mr Ozekhome faces three criminal counts.
The first count alleges that sometime in August 2021, he directly received House 79 Randall Avenue, London, purportedly given to him by one Mr Shani Tali in a transaction the ICPC says constitutes a felony under the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.
The second count accuses the senior lawyer of “making a false document”, namely a Nigerian passport bearing number A07535463 in the name of Mr Shani Tali, with the intent to support a claim of ownership of the London property. This charge is filed under the Penal Code of the Federal Capital Territory.
In the third count, Mr Ozekhome is accused of “dishonestly” using the allegedly false passport as genuine to support the property ownership claim when he had reason to believe the document was false.
The Property Dispute
The controversy began in August 2021 when Mr Ozekhome applied to transfer the property at 79 Randall Avenue, Neasden, into his name. He claimed it was a gift from a man who presented himself as Tali Shani, said to be the property’s owner, in appreciation for legal services.
He admitted, however, that he never knew Mr Shani until January 2019, more than two decades after the disputed purchase, and had no personal knowledge of how the property was acquired or managed in earlier years.
The Nigerian lawyer told the tribunal that, after being introduced to Mr Shani in 2019, he provided several legal services for him, ranging from advisory work to court appearances, and that the property was later gifted to him in 2021 as an expression of gratitude.
He described Mr Shani as a wealthy farmer and businessman engaged in cattle, groundnuts, mangoes, and real estate, and said Mr Shani came to see him as a father figure.
Mr Ozekhome declined to provide evidence of the alleged legal work, citing client confidentiality. He also denied paying the £500,000 mentioned in Mr Shani’s statements, insisting that the transfer was entirely “gratuitous and that the value of his professional services exceeded any monetary consideration.”
As part of the verification process required by the Land Registry for the application, Mr Ozekhome provided a copy of a Nigerian passport, certified as a true copy by an English solicitor.
The passport stated that Tali Shani (male) was born on 2nd April 1973 in Plateau State, Nigeria. This means he would have been 20 years old when the title to the property was registered. No copy of any birth certificate was provided.
Mr Ozokhome’s application 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.
She claimed that she had never signed any transfer and was “outraged” by Mr Ozekhome’s application.
Mr Shani testified in court
Aside from Mr Ozekhome and the purported Ms Shani, at the heart of the storm was the late Jeremiah Useni, a retired army general and minister of the Federal Capital Territory under military Head of State, Sani Abacha.
To support Mr Ozekhome, the purported Mr Shani, in his statement about his ownership, said he had been the legal owner since 16 November 1993.
Mr Shani told the Tribunal that, “I employed General Jeremiah T. Useni to be my Agent/Manager with respect to the property, I, being a very busy businessman, and not ordinarily resident in the UK.” Elsewhere, he referred to General Useni as his “property manager” and his “elder friend and business partner” with whom he had a “close business relationship”.
He also said that: “I alone, and no one else, bore and controlled the original title deeds and documents to 79 Randall Avenue…which I have since transferred to Chief Ozekhome, who now has custody of the same.”
However, the late Mr Useni’s testimony told a different story.
Before his death, Mr Useni appeared before the court through a video link in 2024. Contrary to Mr Ozekhome’s defence, Mr Useni told the court plainly: “I owned it. I bought the property. It is my property.”
Although the house was registered under the name “Tali Shani”, court records show that Mr Useni was unable or unwilling to explain why the property was in that name. He was asked about the businessman, Tali Shani, whom he said he had first met seven or eight years ago, and was specifically asked what this man had to do with this property; his answer was “Nothing”.
Tribunal’s Verdict
In its verdict, the tribunal held that the case was built on a network of fraud, impersonation, and forged documents, but concluded that Mr Useni was the genuine purchaser of the property back in 1993.
Judge Paton of the UK Tribunal ruled that the house was secretly bought in 1993 by the late General Jeremiah Useni, the former Nigerian Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, using a false identity.
Documents before the tribunal confirmed that the acquisition was made under a false identity, “Philips Bincan,” a practice consistent with findings by the Royal Court of Jersey in a separate 2022 case that exposed Mr Useni’s use of coded names like “Tim Shani” to conceal wealth.
However, the tribunal rejected Mr Ozekhome’s account. “Mr Tali Shani… did not purchase this property himself in 1993, and so had no title of his own to pass to the respondent,” the judge said.
READ ALSO: Jeremiah Useni’s UK property eyed by Ozekhome remains unclaimed after forfeiture notice – CCB
The court found that Mr Ozekhome’s defence amounted to a “contrived story… invented in an attempt to provide a plausible reason” for the 2021 transfer.
The tribunal concluded that Mr Shani had no connection whatsoever to the 1993 purchase and that the story advanced by Mr Ozekhome could not stand.
The tribunal therefore ruled that since Mr Shani had no legal title, he could not have transferred the property to Mr Ozekhome. Ownership of the property, the judge said, now rests with whoever secures probate over Mr Useni’s English estate.
Mr Useni, who died in France in January 2025, was a highly influential member of the Sani Abacha government and was considered a contender to succeed Mr Abacha as head of state following Mr Abacha’s death in June 1998.
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