A Federal High Court in Abuja, on Monday, set aside its order directing the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) to take over assets belonging to a businessman, Jimoh Ibrahim, over alleged N69.4bn debt.
The court had on January 4, 2021 made the order in aid of Taiwo Lakanu, the receiver/manager to manage NICON Investment Ltd and Global Fleet Oil and Gas Ltd owned by Jimoh Ibrahim over alleged N69.4bn debt.
Justice Okon Abang, who vacated the order on the grounds that the applicant (AMCON) concealed facts relating to the case, added that the interim order to take over Ibrahim’s property was fraudulently obtained.
Justice Evelyn Maha had in a ruling on an ex-parte application by AMCON on January 4, 2021, granted leave to AMCON to seize some assets belonging to Ibrahim in order to recover the said N69. 4bn debt.
Justice Maha had granted the ex-parte application by AMCON to, among others, restrain Jimoh Ibrahim, NICON Insurance Ltd, Nigeria Re-Insurance Hotel Ltd, Abuja International Hotels Ltd and NICON Hotels Ltd, and their agents from interfering or obstructing Lakanu from performing his responsibilities as receiver/ manager appointed over NICON Investment and Global Fleet.
The judge made further consequential orders directing the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and other security officers named in the application, to provide Lakanu with all the needed assistance to execute his task.
But the defendants which include: Ibrahim, his firm’s, NICON Investment Ltd and Global Fleet Oil and Gas Ltd, had in another application prayed the court to set aside the order on grounds of “non-disclosure and misrepresentation of material facts.”
In his ruling on the application, Justice Abang agreed with the defendants that AMCON concealed facts, which robbed his court of any jurisdiction to hear the matter.
According to the judge, the ruling of a Federal High Court in Lagos delivered in 2016 which restrained AMCON from taking over the defendant’s property pending final determination of the matter, was still subsisting and had neither been appealed against nor vacated, hence his order of January 4, 2021 was a nullity.
Abang further held that all consequential orders made on January 4 regarding AMCON’s ex-parte application for the seizure of Ibrahim’s assets over the alleged N69.4 billion debt stood vacated.
He also held that parties in the suit would at the next adjourned date address him on whether he had jurisdiction or not to go ahead with the case
Justice Abang thereafter, in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/L/001/2021, vacated the main order and the accompanying consequential order made by Justice Maha.
He said: “The first plaintiff (AMCON) did not disclose to this court (differently constituted) that this court on the 2nd of October 2019, sitting in Lagos division, in suit number: FHC/L/CS/776/2016, stayed proceedings in the subject matter of this suit, which is the same with the one pending at the High Court of Lagos State, pending when forensic audit of the disputed debt between the parties, is ascertained.”
The judge noted that the issue at stake was not about AMCON’s power to appoint a receiver/manager, but whether AMCON deposed to the court in Abuja, before obtaining the January 4, 2021 orders, that there was a subsisting order made by the Lagos division on October 2, 2019 staying proceedings.
“This is a clear case of concealment of material facts before the ex-parte order was made. This is a case of non-disclosure and suppression of material facts. AMCON cannot pretend that the order made on the 2nd of October 2019 does not exist, having not appealed.
“As far as the ex-parte order, limited to the 4th of January 2021 is concerned, it is a nullity. Where a trial court lacked jurisdiction to make an order, a judge of coordinate jurisdiction has jurisdiction to set same aside,” the judge said.
He added that although the AMCON’s power to appoint receiver/manager, under Section 48 of its Act, was not in doubt, the issue of whether it (AMCON) could appoint a receiver Manager over NICON Investment and Global Fleet in respect of a debt that had not been ascertained could not only be determined at the hearing of the substantive suit.
The judge ordered the five defendants in the suit, including Jimoh Ibrahim to file their defence to the substantive suit and adjourned till March 15 this year for parties to first, address the court on whether it could proceed with further hearing of the suit in view of an earlier ruling it gave on February 25, 2011 in a related case, marked: FHC/L/CS/1359/2010 between Union Bank and NICON Investment and six others.
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