{"id":594194,"date":"2026-05-20T11:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T11:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/594194\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T11:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T11:08:10","slug":"saleh-mamman-nigeria-arrests-former-minister-in-hiding-after-conviction-for-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/594194\/","title":{"rendered":"Saleh Mamman: Nigeria arrests former minister in hiding after conviction for corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

The court ruled that prosecutors had proved their case beyond reasonable doubt. He was sentenced in absentia<\/a> after 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The court ruled that prosecutors had proved their case beyond reasonable doubt. He was sentenced in absentia after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-594194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}