EFCC Arrests US-Based Lawyer, Ugwuonye, For Defrauding Nigerian Government

Ephraim Emeka Igwuonye

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has detained US-based lawyer, Ephraim Emeka Ugwuonye, for fraud-related issues. Agents of the State Security Services (SSS) arrested Mr. Ugwuonye last Saturday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.

Mr. Ugwuonye was later moved to Abuja where he was handed over to the EFCC for further action.
EFCC spokesman, Femi Babafemi, told Naija News Desk today that Mr. Ugwuonye had been "watch listed" at the port of entry a few months ago after Nigeria’s Attorney General and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concluded that he defrauded the Nigerian authorities in a series of real estate transactions where he acted as an attorney to the Nigerian government.

The real estate transactions were the subject of an investigative report by Naija News Desk in 2009. In the report, we exposed how the controversial attorney seized $1.7 million in tax refunds belonging to the Nigerian embassy in Washington DC. Mr. Ugwuonye had confiscated the funds after he represented the Nigerian embassy in Washington, DC to sell several houses belonging to the Nigerian government. He reportedly justified the seizure of the funds by claiming that the Nigerian government owed him fees for other legal services he had done.

The real estate transactions also triggered an inquiry by the Nigerian House of Representatives, although it was unclear if the legislative hearing led the SSS to “watch list” Ugwuonye for arrest.

The EFCC’s Babafemi confirmed that Mr. Ugwuonye was handed over to the agency on Monday and had since been interrogated about the whereabouts of the proceeds of the transactions.

Mr. Babafemi said Mr. Ugwuonye was still being interrogated, adding that the detained attorney claimed that he was in Nigeria to attend a wedding ceremony. Naija News Desk could not determine if it was his own wedding.

Mr. Ugwuonye has had a troubled career in recent years, earning professional rebuke by regulatory authorities in the US.  In an ironic twist in 2010, he forfeited the companies used in the real estate transactions with the Nigerian Embassy to the state of Maryland for failure to pay property taxes on them.  An official in the office of the State Comptroller in Maryland described Mr. Ugwuonye at that time as a “deadbeat resident agent.”  A source told Naija News Desk that Mr. Ugwuonye is also currently facing a professional conduct inquiry by the Attorney Grievances Commission in that state.

Since Naija News Desk broke the news regarding the real estate transactions, Mr. Ugwuonye had sued us as well as other Nigerians who commented about the transactions for libel. He has also harassed several Nigerians by private e-mail threatening to sue them. He lost his libel case against Mobolaji Aluko, an engineering professor at Howard University as well as a blogger.

Mr. Ugwuonye also enlisted some bloggers to harass anyone who questioned his questionable handling of the real estate transactions. His clique of bloggers has tagged critics of Mr. Ugwuonye’s as anti-Igbo. He also filed claims in court that there was a conspiracy against his person because he was an Igbo person.

The EFCC said they plan to charge Mr. Ugwuonye to court for fraud in order to recover monies he illegally took from the Nigerian government.

That plan will be tested.  Naija News Desk has learned that since Mr. Ugwuonye’s arrest, several powerful Nigerians have been putting pressure on the EFCC to drop the charges.

 “This is an easy one to predict,” an analyst said today.  “In two weeks this story may not exist.”