Notorious convicted fraudster Emmanuel Nwude is once again at the centre of a courtroom drama, as a Lagos court fixed February 13, 2026, to deliver judgment in a fresh case alleging forgery and illegal dealings in court-forfeited property.
Justice Mojisola Dada of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, adjourned the matter for judgment after hearing final oral submissions from both the prosecution and defence.
Nwude is standing trial alongside two lawyers, Emmanuel Ilechukwu and Rowland Kalu, in what prosecutors describe as a calculated attempt to undermine a subsisting court order.
The defendants are facing a 15-count charge bordering on conspiracy, forgery, and attempting to deal in property already forfeited by an order of court.
According to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nwude and his co-accused allegedly conspired to forge documents relating to a property earlier ordered forfeited to the victims by Justice Joseph Olubunmi Oyewole of the Lagos State High Court.
The EFCC alleged that the defendants prepared and used forged documents, including a Power of Attorney purportedly transferring control of the forfeited asset to Mankris Ventures Limited.
At the hearing, defence counsels, Chuks Nwanchukwu for Nwude, Mrs F.R.A. Williams for Ilechukwu, and E. Nwokolo for Kalu urged the court to discharge and acquit the defendants, insisting that the prosecution failed to establish the ingredients of the alleged offences.
However, EFCC counsel, Nnaemeka Omewa, argued otherwise, urging the court to convict the defendants.
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He described the alleged acts as a deliberate scheme to defeat a valid court order and further deprive victims of justice.
The case has reignited public attention on Nwude’s infamous past as one of Nigeria’s most audacious fraudsters.
In 2005, he was convicted by an Ikeja High Court, presided over by Justice Oyewole, for impersonating former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Paul Ogwuma.
That elaborate scam, carried out between 1995 and 1998, saw Brazil’s Banco Noroeste defrauded of $242 million under the guise of financing a fictitious national monument project.
The fraud later ranked as the third-largest bank scam globally and contributed to the bank’s collapse in 2001.
Nwude was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment in what marked the EFCC’s first major landmark conviction after its establishment in 2003.
He was released in 2016 after serving about 11 years, following a presidential pardon and time credited, a chapter many believed was closed, until now.
