A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos
has struck out the preliminary objection filed by the Nigerian Agip Oil
Company Limited against the federal government.
The preliminary objection dated March
24, 2016, came on the heels of the lawsuits filed by the government
against notable international oil companies (IOCs) such Chevron, Mobil,
Agip, among others, seeking an order of the court to strike out the suit
filed by the government on the grounds that it failed to disclose a
reasonable cause of action against the defendant.
In opposition to the objection, the
federal government, through its legal team led by Professor Fabian
Ajogwu (SAN), filed a counter-affidavit praying the court to
discountenance the prayers of Agip and hold that there exists a right
and a reasonable cause of action against the defendant.
After a thorough consideration of the
totality of the application, the court in its ruling, agreed with the
arguments of counsel to the federal government and held that it
(government) had a reasonable cause of action against the multinational
oil corporation.
In a move seen by industry watchers as a
major step by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to curb the
menace of oil theft in the country, the federal government had March 3,
2016 instituted civil suits against IOCs operating in the country in a
bid to recover over N2 trillion in alleged missing revenues from over 57
million barrels of crude oil shipments that were believed to have been
declared or under-declared between 2011 and 2014.
The suit may not be unconnected to
President Buhari’s position from the outset of his government that a lot
of the oil theft under his predecessor’s administration went on with
the collusion of international oil tankers that lift Nigeria’s crude on
behalf of the IOCs and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC).
The federal government in the civil
actions suits, stated that the decline in crude oil revenue recorded in
2014 ‘necessitated an intelligence based gathering of data, which showed
that part of the reasons for the decline in the revenue from crude oil
exploration was the un-declaration and/or under-declaration of crude oil
shipments’.
In the suit, it was discovered that “the
crude oil declared to have been exported from Nigeria, was less than
what was declared to have been imported into the United States using the
same shipment by the same vessel on the same bill of lading.”
The lawyers representing the government
revealed that the missing revenue accrued to Nigeria from the illegal
shipments made between 2011 and 2014 to buyers in the US alone is worth a
total of $12.7billion. At the current official exchange rate, the said
amount would be worth over N2.4trillion.
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