Passport presented to back Ozekhome’s claim to controversial London property fake – Witness

A Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) officer said on Friday that a passport with the name Tali Shani, which was presented in a London property ownership case involving senior lawyer Mike Ozekhome, is fake.

Akim Aridegbe, a principal staff officer to the comptroller-general of the NIS, said this at the FCT High Court in Abuja, during the impersonation and forgery trial of Mr Ozekhome and his co-accused, Ponfa Useni.

Mr Aridegbe, who is the first prosecution witness, said the Nigerian passport numbered A07535463, “was not issued by the Nigerian Immigration Service; it is not in our database…the passport belonging to Tali Shani is fake.”

On 27 February, the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) arraigned Mr Ozekhome and Mr Useni on 12 counts of forgery and impersonation. Mr Useni is a son of the late Jeremiah Useni, who was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during the military regime of the late Sani Abacha.

According to the charges, Messrs Ozekhome and Useni conspired in 2020 alongside the late Jeremiah Useni, a retired general and made “a false Nigerian International Passport No. A07535463 with the name Tali Shani, and purportedly to have been issued by the Nigeria 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. Together, they allegedly created a fake “Irrevocable Power of Attorney” to help Mr Ozekhome claim the property.

They denied all the allegations.

‘One of the passports was not issued by the NIS’

During Friday’s proceedings, the witness informed the court that they had received letters from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to authenticate the passports of Ponfa Useni and Tali Shani.

After checking the Immigration’s database, they discovered that “one of the passports was not issued by the NIS while the other, belonging to one Useni, was issued by the NIS,” the witness said.

This finding was forwarded to the EFCC.

The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Rotimi Oyedepo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), presented through the witness the letter EFCC wrote to the NIS to authenticate the passports and the NIS’ response to EFCC as evidence.

The defence lawyers did not object to the documents’ admissibility.

‘How authentic passport is produced

Thereafter, the witness explained the procedure for the issuance of the passport to the court.

He noted that after an online payment for the passport, the database generates the record, the breeder documents are then generated and input into the system, alongside the National Identification Number (NIN).

This then generates the data for every applicant for a passport. He said the Nigerian passports are then encrypted into the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which makes it easier for international borders to access biometric data.

Therefore, any passport the NIS produces goes through a systematic process before its final production. But such was not the case with Tali Shani.

‘No record of Tali Shani’s

The witness said the NIS system works in such a way that, “once you insert a name, it brings out the particulars and history of that person, but on inserting this Tali Shani, no record was found.”

He also said the NIS did not have any record of payments in respect to this particular passport.

Similarly, the witness told the court that the NIS received a letter from the EFCC to interview Abdulkadir Lawal, but after checking the legal unit and nominal roll of the NIS, “no name of such exists.”

“We then communicated our findings to the EFCC,” he said.

The NIS extended their search to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel System (IPPIS) to be sure of their discovery and thus, “no name like that exists.”

Also, the EFCC requested the authentication of a letter Abdulkadir Lawan wrote, the witness said.

He stated that the Comptroller General of NIS set up a panel to investigate the letter. The witness said he headed the panel.

‘Abdulkadir Lawan never represented the NIS’

“The letter written by the same Abdulkadir Lawan never represented the NIS…it means the letter is fake,” Mr Aridegbe said of the finding of his panel.

The correspondence between the EFCC and the NIS was tendered as evidence, but the first and second defendants’ lawyers, Tayo Oyetibo, a SAN, and E.R Onoja, also a SAN, respectively, reserved their objection for their final addresses.

Trial judge, Chizoba Oji, admitted the documents as exhibits.

During cross-examination by Mr Ozkheome’s lawyer, Mr Oyetibo, the witness informed the court that he became a principal staff officer to the comptroller-general in December 2023 but was on out-post duty outside Nigeria prior to July 2023.

The judge adjourned the matter until 15 April for further cross-examination of the witness..

How London tribunal exposed alleged fraud, blocks ownership transfer

In September 2025, Judge Ewan Paton of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) delivered a judgment blocking Mr Ozekhome from claiming the house in North London.

The tribunal held that the case was 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.

In August 2021, Mr Ozekhome applied to transfer the property at 79 Randall Avenue into his name, claiming it was a gift from a man who presented himself as Tali Shani in appreciation for legal services.

However, the 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 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.

Mr Useni, an army general who died in France in January 2025, was a very influential member of the Sani Abacha government and was even in contention to be head of state following Mr Abacha’s death in June 1998.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

READ ALSO: London Property Saga: AGF office arraigns Ozekhome, co-defendant on forgery, impersonation charges

Ozekhome’s defence

In his statement at the ICPC, Mr Ozekhome said he was aware of the judgment granted by the First Tier Tribunal in the UK.

“It was prompted by an objection to my application for the transfer of a property situated at 79 Randall Avenue, London, to me, which was filed by myself and Mr Shani Tali before the H.M. Lands Registry UK. I have seen the judgment now shown to me (albeit an uncertified copy),” he stated.

“This fact about my title to the property, how I came about it, and all have been exhaustively written down and explained to the EFCC, and I have no further explanation to the same, all issues having been under investigation by the Commission for many months now.”

Mr Ozekhome further said the ownership had been with him since 2021, adding that everything concerning Mr Tali Shani and himself, as regards evidence, could be found in the judgment.

In the UK court documents, Mr Ozekhome admitted 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.

His confidence in the claim, he explained, stemmed largely from his long-standing relationship with Mr Useni, whom he described as both a client and friend for over 20 years.

The Nigerian lawyer told the tribunal that after being introduced to Mr Shani in 2019, he undertook several legal services for him and that the property was later gifted to him in 2021 as an “expression of gratitude.”

The Federal High Court in Abuja recently ordered the forfeiture of the property in favour in the Nigerian government.