Nigerian billionaire, Ifeanyi Ubah who is being held by men of the Department of State Security Services has dragged the agency to court.
The Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited, Ifeanyi Ubah
The Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited, Ifeanyi Ubah, has sued the Department of State Services before the Federal High Court in Lagos over what he termed unlawful detention by the security agency, Punch reports.
The
suit was filed by Ubah’s lawyer, Mrs. Ifeoma Esom, who appeared before
Justice Mohammed Idris on Tuesday with an ex parte application, claiming
that her client had been in detention since May 6.
She urged the judge to order the DSS to release Ubah to prevent the security agency from coercing him to accede to “whatever conditions they impose on him in exchange for his freedom.”
Upon
hearing the ex parte application on Tuesday, Justice Idris ordered the
DSS to bring Ubah before him on May 12, 2017, to show cause why the
businessman should not be released unconditionally.
In
an affidavit filed in support of the application, the Secretary of
Capital Oil and Gas Limited,George Oranuba, claimed that the DSS
arrested his boss on account of allegations levelled against him by the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Asset Management
Corporation of Nigeria.
According to Oranuba, the
issue had become a subject of litigation and was already before the
court. Oranuba, however, said despite the subsisting suit, the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission and the DSS still invited Ubah for
questioning.
According to him, Ubah had earlier
been detained from March 24 to April 14, 2017. The DSS had claimed that
it arrested and detained Ubah for what it termed an act of “economic
sabotage” involving an alleged diversion of petroleum products worth
about N11bn.
The DSS claimed that the said
petroleum products, belonging to NNPC Retail, stored in the Capital Oil
farm in Lagos, went missing under controversial circumstances.
However,
the company secretary, Oranuba, said the agreement leading to the
keeping of the petroleum product with Capital Oil, allowed “conversion
and diversion of IT products by operators as long as the operator is
prepared to re-deliver the products within seven days of demand by the
owner of the product or to pay a penalty for non-re-delivery.”
According
to him, failure to re-deliver did not amount to a crime but is a mere
breach of contract, which can be remedied by payment of a penalty to the
owner.
“The agreement expressly
states that any penalty due for non-re-delivery is to be treated as a
debt and I verily believe that law enforcement agencies are not allowed
to operate as debt collectors,” he said.
Oranuba claimed that NNPC is indebted to Capital Oil and Gas Limited in “excess
of N13bn yet the company did not call law enforcement agencies to
collect the debt, despite the length of time NNPC has held on to the
money.”