A Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) officer said on Thursday that while a passport presented in a London property ownership case involving senior lawyer Mike Ozekhome shared features of a genuine copy, it has no record in the NIS database.
The Principal Staff Officer to the Comptroller-General of the NIS, Akim Aridegbe, stated this under cross-examination by defence lawyers during a hearing in the impersonation and forgery trial of Mr Ozekhome and his co-accused, Ponfa Useni.
The trial, which started earlier in the year, is ongoing at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja.
The Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) arraigned Messrs Ozekhome and Useni on 12 counts of forgery and impersonation on February 27.
Mr Useni is the son of the late Jeremiah Useni, who was said to have acquired the London property under the name Tali Shani in the 1990s while serving as the FCT Minister under the regime of General Sani Abacha.
According to the charges, the defendants conspired in 2020 alongside the late Jeremiah Useni, a retired general and Ponfa Useni’s father, to create “a false Nigerian International Passport No. A07535463 bearing the name Tali Shani, purportedly issued by the NIS,” 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 enable Mr Ozekhome to claim the property.
They denied all the allegations.
During Thursday’s cross-examination, Mr Aridegbe answered questions from defence counsel, which revisited parts of his earlier testimony.
Mr Useni’s lawyer, F.R. Onoja, SAN, asked whether the NIS keeps records of all passport booklets in its database. The witness responded in the affirmative.
Mr Aridegbe, the first prosecution witness, further explained that the NIS process includes payment, verification, enrolment, production, and issuance, but none of these records relating to the passport in question was found in the database.
When asked to examine the passport and confirm whether it contained features issued by the NIS, the witness replied, “Yes.”
He also confirmed that all passports bear unique numbers. When asked whether these numbers are generated serially by the NIS computerised system, he responded, “I will say no.”
Explaining further, he said: “These passports from the manufacturers come with unique numbers, and it is only the data pages that are different, following the enrolment of the applicant and production of the passport.”
Earlier, the witness stated that he was fully acquainted with the facts of the case.
When asked whether the NIS would be embarrassed if it turned out that the controversial passport bearing the name Tali Shani and number A07535463 was issued by the service, he responded, “Yes.”
He also confirmed that the Nigerian passport is a machine-readable document with specific features that can only be read by designated machines.
The witness maintained that the name Abdulkadir Lawan, who purportedly issued a letter on behalf of the NIS to authenticate the passport bearing “Tali Shani,” does not appear on the NIS nominal roll.
When asked whether he personally checked the nominal roll, he replied, “We checked the nominal roll; it was teamwork.”
Insisting further, he said, “I checked, and the team also did.”
He added that the team searched nominal rolls across all relevant years but could not find the name.
He explained that the nominal rolls are stored electronically, although he could not recall the number of names contained therein.
This testimony aligns with his earlier statement on March 13, when he first testified in the case led by prosecution counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, Director of Public Prosecutions.
Mr Aridegbe had previously told the court that the NIS received a letter from the EFCC requesting an interview with Abdulkadir Lawan.
He described the letter as fake, stating that after checks with the NIS legal unit and nominal roll, the name did not exist and was not listed on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
He added that another letter written by the same Abdulkadir Lawan did not emanate from the NIS.
Thereafter, the trial judge, Chizoba Oji, adjourned the case until May 18.
Mr Ozekhome’s prosecution in Nigeria stems from a London tribunal judgment 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.
However, this claim was challenged in September 2022 by Westfields Solicitors, representing “Ms Tali Shani,” who maintained that she had been the registered owner of the property since 1993 and had never signed any transfer.
In its ruling, Judge Paton of the UK tribunal found that the property was secretly purchased in 1993 by the late Jeremiah Useni using a false identity.
The tribunal held that Mr Ozekhome’s attempt to claim the property was based on fraud, impersonation, and forged documents, although it affirmed that the late Mr Useni was the actual purchaser.
The tribunal also uncovered fraudulent Nigerian identity records, including a passport, National Identification Number (NIN), and Tax Identification Number (TIN), allegedly generated with the involvement of compromised officials in the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the NIS, and the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
Recently, the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the forfeiture of the property to the Nigerian government, while the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) has initiated steps to recover it.
