Hanan Abdul-Wahab
Former Chief Executive Officer of National Food and Buffer Stock Company Limited (NAFCO), Hanan Abdul-Wahab, has filed an application for the review of the order of a High Court in Adenta, Accra, confirming the ‘unlawful’ freezing of some of his properties by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO).
According to him, no factual or legal basis was established by EOCO to support a freezing of his assets and further “categorically” denied EOCO’s allegation of criminal conduct in the acquisition of the properties in question, indicating that they are not found on any credible evidence presented to the court.
He contends that EOCO was merely motivated “by a desire to freeze every property tangentially connected to him, irrespective of whether that property was acquired in his period in office or not.”
Hanan Abdul-Wahab, Faiza Seidu Wuni, together with Richard Sam-Asante, who is said to be on run, the Ludiba Foundation and Energy Partners Limited, two companies related to the couple, have been charged by the Attorney General for allegedly stealing money from the state through a criminal enterprise.
The five are facing 24 counts of charges of stealing, fraudulently causing financial loss to the state, abetment of stealing, money laundering, defrauding by false pretences, intentional dissipation of public funds, using public office for profit, dishonestly receiving and intentionally causing financial loss to the state.
Prior to the filing of the charges, EOCO seized some properties believed to have been acquired by the former NAFCO CEO through proceeds of crime.
The properties include three-bedroom house at Kpalsi in Tamale in the Northern Region; uncompleted storey building at Gumami, Tamale; 0.27-acre plot of land in Tamale and another 0.29-acre plot of land also in Tamale.
On November 21, 2025, EOCO secured a court order confirming the freezing of the properties, a confirmation he argues was done ex parte without notice to him.
In an application filed by Richard Gyambibi of Dame & Partners, the applicant argues that by proceeding ex parte to procure the order, EOCO deprived him of his constitutional right to be heard and to contest the factual and legal basis of its application.
Mr. Abdul-Wahab contends that the application for confirmation of the freezing of his properties failed to meet the essential statutory preconditions required for an invocation of the court’s jurisdiction to confirm freezing order made by EOCO, thereby making the order null, void and ought to be set aside.
The applicant further argues that some of the properties frozen by EOCO were acquired long before his appointment as CEO of NAFCO and the entire period of investigation for the alleged offences and, therefore, “cannot have any conceivable nexus to the matters purportedly being investigated by the respondent [EOCO].”
This includes the property at Kpalsi, which he said he acquired in 2011 and completed the construction of the house in 2013, and performed part of his Islamic marriage ceremony to his wife in the same year in that house.
He attached documents covering the acquisition of the land as well as photographs portraying a party organised in that house in 2013 to celebrate the marriage.
Mr. Abdul-Wahab also contends that the uncompleted storey building with GPS Address NR-151-7759, Gumami, Adjacent Baobab Guest House, Tamale, mentioned in the freezing order does not belong to him and therefore cannot lawfully form the subject of a freezing order issued against him.
He also argues that he does not have any legal or beneficial interest in the 0.27-acre land with GPS Address NS-320-6111, Estate Junction, Dagomba Street, Tamale, as it was the property of Al-Qarni Enterprise, an entity in which he has no interest.
“The said Al-Qarni Enterprise transferred full ownership of its interest in the property to OSGAF Furniture Enterprise in 2022, long before the purported investigations commenced,” he avers.
It is his case that a failure by EOCO to state and prove the essential factors specified by the EOCO Act 2010, (Act 804) and Ghanaian law in general, for a grant of a confirmation order as the one in question, renders the order obtained null, void and of no effect.
He also avers that “to the extent that the orders affected properties of mine acquired in 2013, long before I was employed as a staff of NAFCO, same violate my right to own property enshrined in article 20 of the constitution.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak