Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court Sitting in Lagos has ordered the Department of State Services, DSS, to produce the Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited, Ifeanyi Ubah on Friday, May 12, 2017 and explain why the oil mogul should not be released unconditionally.

The Justice gave the ruling on Tuesday following an ex-parte application filed by Mr Ubah’s counsel, Mrs Ifeoma Esom, to compel his release from the DSS’ custody where he has been since Saturday, May 6.

Recall that Ubah was arrested on Saturday by the DSS over his alleged refusal to remit N11 billion realised from the sales of petroleum products stored in his facility by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

The DSS claimed that the Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited was arrested over “economic sabotage”, and alleged diversion of petroleum products to the tune of N11bn.

Ifeanyi Ubah

A statement by the spokesman for the DSS, Tony Opuiyo had also accused Ubah of inciting members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers Union to stop lifting petroleum products so as to cripple the economy and cause untold hardship to Nigerians.

However, Mrs. Esom had prayed the court to compel DSS to produce Ubah within 48 hours because, according to her, failure to do so would leave Ubah at the mercy of the DSS who might “coerce him into acceding to whatever conditions they impose on him in exchange for his freedom”.

Also, an affidavit by the Secretary to the Capital Oil and Gas Limited, George Oranuba, claimed that the DSS acted in disregard of “the constitutional doctrine of separation of power and sanctity of the judicial process”.

He pointed out that it was improper to accuse Ubah of stealing and diverting petroleum products stored by the NNPC in his depots since there were records of how such products were sold and accounts kept.

“Now, even if the NNPC says the money has not been paid by Ubah’s company, that does not amount to stealing and diversion as claimed by the DSS,”
Mr Oranuba, however said the throughput agreement allowed “conversion and diversion of its products by ‘operators’, so long as the operator is prepared to re-deliver the products within seven days of demand by the products owner, or to pay a penalty for non-re-delivery”.

He explained further that failure to re-deliver was a ‘mere’ breach of contract, remediable by the payment of penalty to the owner.