Justice Mojisola Dada of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos convicted and sentenced Nwude and his two lawyers, Emmanuel Ilechukwu and Rowland Kalu, to one year imprisonment each for forgery and dealing in forfeited property located at Plot Y, Mobolaji Johnson Street, Oregun Alausa, Ikeja.
The verdict was delivered on Wednesday March 11, 2026 twenty-one years after Nwude was first sent to prison for one of the most audacious financial frauds in Nigerian history.
Justice Dada found the defendants guilty on 13 of the 15 counts filed against them, acquitting them on only two counts relating to false statements.
The backstory is essential to understanding just how brazen Nwude’s conduct was. In 2005 Nwude was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment after convincing Nelson Sakaguchi, then director of Banco Noroeste, a Brazilian bank based in São Paulo, to invest $242 million in a non-existent airport.
As part of a plea bargain he entered with prosecutors, Nwude agreed to forfeit several assets including landed properties, vehicles, shares and his company Emrus Auto Nigeria Limited to compensate the victims of his fraud. One of those forfeited properties was Plot Y, Mobolaji Johnson Street, Oregun, Ikeja, a property that was subsequently sold to Rosaab Industrial Design Limited and later assigned to G.C. Nweze and Company Limited.
After serving his sentence Nwude walked free and immediately set about trying to take back what he had already given up. He engaged the services of lawyers Ilechukwu and Kalu and issued a Power of Attorney to Kalu, authorising him to recover and sell the property. The document however falsely listed Mankris Ventures Limited as the owner instead of Emrus Auto Nigeria Limited the company whose assets had already been forfeited by court order.
Acting on the Power of Attorney, Kalu filed a case at a Magistrate Court in Ogba, Lagos and secured an eviction order against G.C. Nweze and Company. Ilechukwu then mobilised court sheriffs and police officers to enforce the order and physically evict the company from the property.
The plan unravelled when G.C. Nweze and Company returned to court, successfully challenged the eviction and exposed the fraud. A petition eventually reached the EFCC, which launched an investigation and arraigned all three men before Justice Dada on March 2, 2018.
The case dragged on for eight years as Nwude contested every step of the process challenging the charge at trial, appealing to a higher court when that failed, returning to testify in his own defence, and exhausting every legal option at his disposal before Wednesday’s verdict brought it all to an end.
The court in convicting Nwude also stated that all properties named in the charge should be forfeited to the victims of the crime as restitution, and that Emrus Auto Nigeria Limited should be wound up with its remaining assets forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission confirmed this report through their official website and social media accounts.
