The Federal High Court in Abuja has discharged and acquitted businessman Aliyu Abubakar and seven other defendants of money laundering, criminal misappropriation, forgery and related charges arising from the management of funds belonging to Malabu Oil and Gas Limited.

Justice Inyang Ekwo delivered the judgments on Thursday in two separate criminal cases containing a combined 53 counts, holding that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission failed to prove the offences alleged against the defendants.

The first judgment concerned a 43-count charge, marked FHC/ABJ/CR/268/2016, in which Abubakar was prosecuted alongside Malabu Oil and Gas Limited and six other companies.

In dismissing the case, Justice Ekwo held that the EFCC ought not to have proceeded with the prosecution after the Attorney-General of the Federation had, in a 2018 letter, directed that the defendants should not be prosecuted because the available evidence was insufficient to sustain the allegations.

The court consequently discharged and acquitted Abubakar and the other defendants on the charges.

Justice Ekwo also delivered judgment in a separate 10-count charge, marked FHC/ABJ/CR/31/2017, in which Abubakar remained the sole defendant.

Former Attorney-General of the Federation Mohammed Adoke had originally been charged alongside Abubakar in the second case but was discharged by the court on April 19, 2024, after his no-case submission was upheld.

With Abubakar’s acquittal in the latest judgment, the court brought the remaining proceedings in that charge against him to an end.

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