New evidence has emerged showing that key documents submitted by prominent Nigerian lawyer Mike Ozekhome to a London court to claim ownership of a north London home were fake, triggering criminal charges against the senior lawyer.
Ironically, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, this document was accepted as authentic by the British courts. Nigeria’s issuing authorities have now confirmed that the document is a fake.
The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has admitted that a Nigerian passport submitted as evidence in a high-profile property dispute was never legally issued.
In a letter to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC), the NIS said the passport booklet number A07535463 submitted to support Mr Ozehome’s ownership claim was defective and was never used, so there is no record of its owner in its database.
“The booklet was reported stolen and was never personalized. Therefore, it is not present in the service’s electronic management system and no certified true copy is available,” the NIS said.
According to the agency’s preliminary findings, personal data in the passport booklet was “illegally superimposed on the data page with numerous discrepancies, suggesting significant irregularities in its creation.”
Judge Ewan Paton of the First Tier Tribunal (Property Court) accepted the passport as genuine evidence during British proceedings. In the September 2025 judgment, the judge noted that there was a man named Tali Shani, and he gave evidence in that name.
“A certified copy of an official Nigerian passport stating that Mr. Tali Shani was born on April 2, 1973 has been submitted to both the Land Registry and this court. I have no evidence or sufficient basis to accept that this document – unlike various pathetic and poor forgeries on the part of the ‘applicant’ – is forged, and I do not do so,” the judge said.
However, NIS findings proved that the passport was in fact a forgery.
filing criminal charges
Based on the findings of the NIS, the ICPC filed a criminal complaint against Mr. Ozekhome at the Federal High Court in Abuja for allegedly receiving property corruptly and using forged documents.
The complaint was filed on January 16 by Ngozi Onwuka of the ICPC’s high-profile prosecution division following a request for the commission to prosecute the senior lawyer.
Ozekhome faces three criminal charges, according to court documents seen by Premium Times.
The first count alleges that sometime in August 2021, he directly received 79 Randall Avenue, London, allegedly from Mr. Shani Tali in a transaction that the ICPC said constituted a felony under the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Act, 2000.
In the second count, a senior lawyer is accused of “creating a false document” – a Nigerian passport bearing number A07535463 in Mr Shani Tali’s name – for the purpose of supporting his claim of ownership of a property in London. The charges are brought under the Federal Capital Territory’s criminal law.
In the third count, Mr. Ozehome is accused of “dishonestly” using an allegedly forged passport as genuine to support a property ownership claim, even though he had reason to believe the document was false.
property dispute
The dispute began in August 2021 when Mr Ozekholm applied to have a property at 79 Randall Avenue, Neasden transferred into his name. He claimed it was given to him by a man identified as Tali Shani, who is said to be the owner of the property, as a thank you for his legal services.
However, he admitted that he did not know Mr Shani at all until January 2019, more than 20 years after the acquisition dispute, and that he had no personal knowledge of how the property was acquired and managed before then.
The Nigerian lawyer told the court that since he was introduced to Mr. Shani in 2019, he had provided several legal services to Mr. Shani, ranging from advisory work to court appearances, after which the property was gifted to Mr. Shani in 2021 as a gesture of gratitude.
He described Mr Shani as a wealthy farmer and businessman involved in the production of cattle, groundnuts, mangoes and real estate, and said Mr Shani had come to see him as a father figure.
Ozekholm declined to provide evidence of the alleged legal work, citing client confidentiality. He also denied the £500,000 payment mentioned in Mr Shani’s statement, insisting the move was completely “gratuitous and the value of his professional services exceeded any financial consideration”.
As part of the verification process required by the Land Registry for the application, Mr Ozekhome provided a copy of his Nigerian passport, which was certified as a true copy by a British lawyer.
The passport states that Tali Shani (male) was born on April 2, 1973 in Plateau State, Nigeria. That is, he should have been 20 years old when the ownership of the property was registered. A copy of the birth certificate was not provided.
Ms Ozohome’s application was challenged in September 2022 by Westfields’ lawyers, who claimed to be acting on behalf of “Mr Tali Shani”, who claimed that she had been the registered owner of the property since 1993.
She claimed she never signed the transfer and was “furious” at Mr Ozekhome’s application.
Mr. Shani testified in court.
Besides Mr. Ozehome and Mr. Shani, the person at the center of the storm was the late Jeremiah Useni, a retired army general and minister of the Federal Capital Territory under the military head of state, Sani Abacha.
In support of Mr. Ozehome, the person identified as Mr. Shani stated in his ownership statement that he has been the legal owner since November 16, 1993.
Mr Shani told the court: “Although I have retained General Jeremiah T. Useni to act as my agent and manager regarding my real estate, I am a very busy businessman and am not normally resident in the United Kingdom.” Elsewhere, he referred to General Useni as an “estate manager” and “an older friend and business partner” with whom he had a “close business relationship.”
He also stated that “the original title deed and documents for 79 Randall Avenue were in the custody and custody of me and no one else. I have since transferred them to Chief Ozekhome, who now has control over them.”
However, the testimony of the late Mr Useni told a different story.
Usseni appeared in court via video link in 2024, before his death. Contrary to Ozehome’s defense, Useni clearly stated in court: “I owned it. I bought the property. It’s mine.”
The house was registered under the name “Tali Shani,” but Mr. Useni could not or was unwilling to explain why the property received that name, according to court records. He was asked about businessman Tali Shani, whom he said he first met seven or eight years ago, and specifically what connection this man had with the property. His answer was “nothing”.
court verdict
In its judgment, the court determined that the case was built on a network of fraud, identity theft and document forgery, but concluded that Mr Useni was the true purchaser of the property in 1993.
Mr Justice Peyton of the British court ruled that the house was secretly purchased in 1993 by the late General Jeremiah Useni, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, using a false identity.
Documents filed in court confirm that the acquisition was carried out under the false identity of “Phillips Vincan”, an action consistent with findings by the Royal Court of Jersey in a separate 2022 case that revealed Mr Useni used code names such as “Tim Shani” to hide his wealth.
However, the court rejected Ozekhome’s explanation. “Mr Tali Shani… did not purchase the property himself in 1993 and therefore had no title of his own to pass on to the defendant,” the judge said.
Related article: Jeremiah Useni’s British property, which was on the radar of Ozehhome, remains unclaimed after notice of confiscation – CCB
The court found that Ozekhome’s defense amounted to a “concocted story concocted to provide a plausible rationale” for the 2021 transfer.
The court concluded that Mr. Shani had nothing to do with the 1993 acquisition and that Mr. Ozekhome’s story could not be supported.
The court therefore ruled that the assets could not be transferred to Mr. Ozekhome because Mr. Shani had no legal rights. The judge said ownership of the property now rests with whoever secured probate for Mr Useni’s UK estate.
Mr. Ousseni, who died in France in January 2025, was a highly influential member of the Sani Abacha government and was considered a candidate to replace Mr. Abacha as head of state after Mr. Abacha’s death in June 1998.
