{"id":30809,"date":"2026-05-21T05:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=30809"},"modified":"2026-05-21T05:44:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:44:06","slug":"nigeria-arrests-former-minister-in-hiding-after-corruption-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2026\/05\/21\/nigeria-arrests-former-minister-in-hiding-after-corruption-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria arrests former minister in hiding after corruption conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency says it has arrested former Power Minister Saleh Mamman a week after he was sentenced to 75 years in jail on corruption charges.<\/b><\/p>\n

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said Mamman was arrested in the early hours of Tuesday in the northern Kaduna state after “weeks of surveillance and intelligence gathering”.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the agency said the former minister had gone into hiding after being convicted by a court in the capital Abuja earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Mamman was found guilty on 12 counts related to the diversion of funds meant for two hydroelectric power projects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The court ruled that prosecutors had proved their case beyond reasonable doubt.\u00a0He was sentenced in absentia<\/a>\u00a0after failing to appear in court.<\/p>\n

His arrest on Tuesday marks a rare follow-through in the fight against high-level corruption, with convictions of top officials uncommon in the West African nation.<\/p>\n

EFCC chairman Ola Olukoyede said authorities were determined to ensure the former minister served his sentence.<\/p>\n

“For us, getting the convict to serve his jail terms is extremely important in view of the seriousness with which we are tackling corrupt practices,” he said.<\/p>\n

The judge who ruled on his case said during the trial that the EFCC had shown that Mamman and his associates diverted at least 22bn naira ($14m; \u00a310m) intended for critical electricity projects.<\/p>\n

The judge described the diversion of public funds as a gross abuse of public trust and said proxy companies and associates were used to siphon money from the projects.<\/p>\n

The former minister was sentenced for multiple prison terms across the charges, which are to run consecutively, making it to a total of 75 years.<\/p>\n

He also faces a separate corruption trial in Abuja over allegations of fraud involving 31bn naira. Earlier this month, another judge issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear in court in that case.<\/p>\n

Mamman served as Nigeria’s power minister between 2019 and 2021 under former President Muhammadu Buhari.<\/p>\n

His conviction has sparked outrage over Nigeria’s lingering electricity problems, especially as he had promised to improve power supply while in office.<\/p>\n

Despite being one of Africa’s biggest energy producers, Nigeria still faces frequent blackouts and power cuts which affect homes and businesses.<\/p>\n

Many people rely on fuel generators for electricity, but rising fuel costs have made this increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency says it has arrested former Power Minister Saleh Mamman a week after he was sentenced to 75 years in jail on corruption charges. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said Mamman […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[7385,948,12513,305,7344,2349,12545,12514],"class_list":["post-30809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-world","tag-abuja","tag-corruption","tag-efcc","tag-fraud","tag-kaduna-state","tag-nigeria","tag-nigeria-anti-corruption-agency","tag-nigeria-economic-and-financial-crimes-commission","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30811,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30809\/revisions\/30811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}