IN SHORT: A Federal High Court in Abuja sentenced former Minister of Power Saleh Mamman to 75 years in prison on May 13 after convicting him on all 12 counts of money laundering filed by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Mamman laundered N33.8 billion ($24.7 million) in funds meant for the Zungeru and Mambilla hydroelectric power projects. The sentences run consecutively rather than concurrently, producing the 75-year total. Mamman was convicted and sentenced in absentia: he disappeared on May 7, the day his first conviction was delivered, and an international arrest warrant has been issued through INTERPOL.
Nigeria has delivered a landmark anti-corruption conviction against a former minister for stealing from the power sector, sentencing Saleh Mamman to 75 consecutive years in absentia in a ruling that Nigerian commentators immediately described as the first “China-style judgment” in a major corruption case, signalling that the EFCC has the capacity to convict ministers who steal from the public infrastructure budget even when they flee the country to avoid justice.
The conviction brings to a close a case that began with Mamman’s arrest on May 10, 2021, the EFCC presenting 17 witnesses and 43 exhibits over five years of proceedings, and concludes with Nigeria’s most prominent power sector corruption prosecution producing a result that is unambiguous in its severity.
- Saleh Mamman served as Minister of Power between 2019 and 2021 under President Muhammadu Buhari, who built his political brand on anti-corruption commitments. Mamman is the first minister from Buhari’s administration to be jailed for graft, a fact that carries particular political resonance given the contrast between Buhari’s stated anti-corruption mission and the actual governance performance of his administration’s power sector.
- The N33.8 billion at the centre of the case represents funds that were meant to finance the Zungeru hydroelectric power plant, now operational in Niger State, and the Mambilla hydroelectric project in Taraba State, which has been in planning and preliminary construction for decades without ever achieving completion. Mambilla, if built, would be one of Nigeria’s largest power facilities. The laundering of its project funds is a direct causal contributor to the delays that have kept it from being built.
- Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court made an explicit choice to run the sentences consecutively rather than concurrently. In Nigeria’s justice system, most multi-count convictions produce sentences that run simultaneously, effectively capping the total prison time at the longest individual sentence. By ordering consecutive sentences, Omotosho rejected that leniency and produced a cumulative 75-year term that is mathematically longer than Mamman’s remaining life expectancy. The judge explicitly stated that Mamman “cannot claim to have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”
- Mamman was convicted on May 7 in absentia when Justice Omotosho found the evidence sufficient for conviction without the defendant present to mount a defence. Mamman had been absent since that date. His own lawyer, Mohammed Ahmed, appeared at the sentencing but did not challenge the proceedings. The court has now ordered all Nigerian and international security agencies, including INTERPOL, to arrest Mamman wherever he is located and deliver him to the Nigerian Correctional Service.
- The EFCC’s five-year case is a procedural achievement as much as a legal one. Nigeria’s anti-corruption prosecutions have historically been characterised by interminable delays, procedural challenges, missing witnesses and convictions that are later overturned on appeal. A 12-count conviction on a five-year case, with 17 witnesses and 43 exhibits sustaining the prosecution through multiple defence challenges, represents a level of prosecutorial quality and judicial firmness that is notable in the context of Nigeria’s corruption case history.
- Nigerian social media reaction to the conviction was immediate and pointed. One commenter noted: “For the first time, Nigeria delivers a China-style judgment in a major corruption case, a historic moment in the fight against corruption.” Another noted that Mamman had been attempting to purchase the APC governorship form for Taraba State despite his ongoing trial: the conviction forecloses that option definitively. The public reaction reflects both genuine satisfaction at the outcome and accumulated frustration at how rarely such outcomes have materialised in previous high-profile cases.
Justice Omotosho further ordered that the differential between the assets and funds recovered from Mamman and the N22 billion the prosecution established during the trial be refunded by the convict.
The Bigger Picture: Mamman’s 75-year sentence is a data point in Nigeria’s long-running argument with itself about whether anti-corruption institutions can actually hold powerful people accountable. The EFCC has secured the conviction. The court has imposed the sentence. The test is whether Mamman is found, extradited or arrested, and whether the sentence is upheld on appeal. If those things happen, the Mamman case becomes a precedent that changes the risk calculus for public officials who steal from infrastructure budgets. If they do not, it becomes another example of justice deferred indefinitely through flight and procedural complexity. Nigeria’s power sector is still generating less than 5,000 megawatts against demand of over 40,000 megawatts. The N33.8 billion Mamman stole would have added meaningful capacity. That is the human cost of this conviction: measured not just in years of prison but in the darkness that followed.
Source: CNBC Africa / Reuters / Daily Post Nigeria / Africanews, May 13-14, 2026
