Just In: Court Orders Release Of Ifeanyi Ubah Within 48 Hours , Another Court gives DSS Nod To Hold Him For Another 14 Days 

Things are starting to take a new turn with Capital Oil and Gas boss Ifeanyi Ubah’s arrest by the Department of State Service  (DSS).

Earlier this morning, a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on Thursday  ordered the  DSS, to within 48 hours release Dr Ubah. The Trial judge, Justice Mohammed in a 100 page judgment, ordered his release if  the DSS fails to file a proper charge against him. 

Embattled Ubah was arrested by DSS over an alleged oil deal with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. The court Thursday, also berated the DSS for lying to the court that Ubah was arrested in Abuja, while from every available evidence, he was arrested in Lagos and flown to Abuja, where he has been detained some weeks. 
But in an interesting twist, A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory sitting at Jabi, on Thursday, granted the Department of State Service, DSS, the nod to hold the Chief Executive Officer of Capital Oil and Gas Ltd, Ifeanyi Ubah, for another 14 days.

Justice Yusuf Halilu extended the detention order following an ex-parte application the DSS filed through its lawyer Mr. G.O.A. Agbadua. The agency said it filed the application considering that an earlier order the court granted it on May 10, elapsed on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Ubah’s lawyer, Mrs Ifeoma Esom has filed a fresh application asking the court to compel the DSS to release her client on administrative bail.

It will be recalled that the security agency had in a counter-affidavit it filed before the court, alleged that Ubah committed an economic sabotage punishable by death. It told the court that the detained oil mogul illegally diverted about 84 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (commonly called petrol), that was kept in his custody by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. The PMS Ubah diverted was valued at N11billion, adding that several effort by the NNPC to recover the PMS it kept in Ubah’s tank farm failed as the applicant had converted it to his personal use.

The agency maintained that Ubah’s action was capable of causing artificial scarcity of the product thus plunging the country not only into widespread scarcity of PMS but also in economic chaos.

Ubah’s lawyer, Esom,   accused the DSS of surreptitiously securing an order to detain her client. Esom alleged that the agency suppressed material facts when on May 10, it persuaded the court to allow it to hold Ubah in its custody for 14 days.

In an application which relied on on section 298(2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, Ubah through his lawyers , told the court that

 “Capital Oil and Gas Ltd (COG) of which the respondent is the CEO has always been one of NNPC’s largest Throughput providers and this is evidenced by Throughput agreements entered into between NNPC subsidiaries and COG over the years. 

“These Throughput agreements, in accordance with the norms and practice in the industry worldwide, allow conversion and diversion of IT products by the ‘Operator’ so long as the Operator is prepared to re-deliver the products (in terms of the current contract) within 7 days of demand by the products owner or to pay a penalty for non re-delivery. 

“The penalty to re-deliver is expressly stated by the Contract to be a mere breach of contract remediable by the payment of penalty to the owner. The penalty is comprised of the cost of delivery of the products to the Operator’s tank farm with interest at Nibor+1.

 “There can therefore be no issue of crime in conversion or diversion of products under a throughput contract (regardless of the ordinary connotations of those words).” 

She revealed that the DSS earlier arrested Ubah at his house in Lagos on March 24 and kept him in its custody until April 14 when he was temporarily and conditionally released after he had been coerced into making payment of N2billion and executing various documents in favour of NNPC and AMCON. 

-Via Vanguard.