Mr Viral
Malabu Oil & Gas Limited has urged the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, to declare its deregistration by the Corporate Affairs Commission as null and void.
The oil and gas company, reportedly jointly owned by Mohammed, son of the late dictator Sani Abacha, and others, has been embroiled in a boardroom crisis.
Malabu, in the originating summons marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2137/2025, had sued CAC as the sole defendant for the deregistration due to an alleged failure to file its annual returns.
The company, in a fresh suit filed by its lawyer, Reuben Atabo, SAN, prayed the court to make an order restoring its name to the register of companies in the country pursuant to Section 692(6) of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020.
Mr Atabo equally sought “an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the defendant (CAC) from further deregistering and/or striking off the name of the plaintiff from its register”.
He sought a declaration that, having regard to the fact that the affairs, management and control of the plaintiff are sub judice and currently being contested in different courts, “it is improper in law for the defendant to purport to strike off the plaintiff’s name from the register of companies in Nigeria pursuant to the provisions of Section 692(3) of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020”.
The senior lawyer listed the various cases to include matters in suit no.: FHC/ABJ/CS/51/2010, in which CAC was a party before Justice Gabriel Kolawole; suit no.: FHC/ABJ/CS/14/2017; suit no.: FHC/ABJ/CS/816/14; charge no.: CR/151/2020; and charge no.: FHC/ABJ/CR/268/2016.
Mr Abacha, in the affidavit he personally deposed to, stated that he was one of the subscribers to the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the company at the time of incorporation, as well as one of its present and subsisting directors.
He said he had the consent of the board of directors of the company to depose to the affidavit.
He said that sometime in 1998, he, along with two persons, incorporated Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd with the CAC and was issued RC NO: 334442.
“At the time of incorporation in April 1998, I, Kweku Amafagha, and Hassan Hindu, Wakili Adamawa, were the original directors and shareholders of the plaintiff. That upon incorporation, the company applied to the federal government of Nigeria through the then Department of Petroleum Resources for allocation of Oil Block.
“That upon due consideration, Oil Processing License 245, otherwise known as OPL245, was granted to the company by the then Minister of Petroleum Resources on behalf of the federal government of Nigeria. That sometime in September 1999, during the administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the security agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria arrested and detained me for a period of about three years, i.e., September 1999 to September 2002, after which I was released from custody.
“That during the period of my incarceration, certain alterations were made at the company’s registry of the defendant wherein my shareholding and directorship were altered without my consent and approval,” he said.
Mr Mohammed said between 2005 and 2011, he instructed his lawyer, Mr Atabo, to write to CAC regarding the purported alterations in shareholding and directorship.
He said that upon the failure by the CAC to rectify those alterations, he commenced an action at the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court before Justice Kolawole, who has been elevated to the Appeal Court in suit no: FHC/ABJ/CS/51/2010.
He said in the midst of different cases filed in courts, the CAC neither informed Malabu that the caveat it placed on its file, which prevented the filing of annual returns, had been lifted, nor did the defendant publish in any national daily newspaper a notice that it would strike off or de-register the company before the purported strike-off.
Mr Mohammed said he was duly informed by his lawyer that the action of the CAC was in contradiction with Section 692(3) of CAMA, 2020.
“That the purported de-registration or striking off of the name of the plaintiff by the defendant from the companies register is unlawful, illegal, null and void,” he said. “That the refusal of the reliefs being sought for in this suit would occasion a grave prejudice to the plaintiff. That the defendant will not be prejudiced by the grant of the reliefs being sought by the plaintiff.”
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the matter as of the time of filing the report.
(NAN)
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