&w=64&q=75)
Indigenes of have demanded N3.1 trillion in damages from Shell Petroleum Company Limited as they secured a Mareva Order from a Federal High Court against the oil company.
Justice T.B Adegoke of the Federal High Court in Akure, Ondo State has restrained the oil firm and four others from selling, allocating, vandalising and or disposing off any of their assets/properties pending the hearing and determination of a substantial suit filed against the company.
Other respondents in the suit are Shell International Company Limited, Shell International Exploration and Production Limited, Attorney General of the Federation and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The restraining order followed as ex parte motion filed and argued by Mohammed Ndarani (SAN) on behalf of the applicants, Prince Afolabi Akinruntan and 1,215 others in suit marked FHC/AK/CS/68/2023.
After reading the affidavit in support of the motion ex parte, deposed to by Prince Akinruntan and owner of Afolabi & Co. Fishing Enterprises, two attached exhibits and a written address filed on the September 1, 2023 at the Registry of the Court, and after hearing Ndarani (SAN), learned counsel to the applicants, the court ordered the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents from selling or disposing their assets whether by themselves or through proxies.
The court said, “That the 1”, 2nd and 3rd respondents, whether acting by themselves or through their agents, officers, employees, servants, assigns, privies, representatives, subsidiaries or otherwise howsoever called or described are restrained from selling, allocating, vandalising and or disposing off any of their assets/properties including official structures, oil wells, oil fields, installations, vehicles, equipment, investments, offshore or onshore or any of its properties howsoever described in any part of the territory of Nigeria pending the hearing and determination of this suit.
“That the ex parte order will last pending the determination of this suit,” Justice Adegoke ordered in September 28, 2023.”
The judge declared that the suit shall be given accelerated hearing, adding that it shall be discharged if it is shown that the Court has been deceived in making the order.
The applicants, who are members of the indigenous communities in Ondo State had sued the respondents, praying the court to enforce their fundamental rights and the remediation of the environmental hazards and degradations caused by the oil spillage of the 1st and 2nd respondents’ ruptured pipelines.
During the pendency of the suit, the applicants got wind of the intention of the respondents to sale off their assets and quit business operations in Nigeria and therefore filed the ex parte motion to stop them so as not to render nugatory, academic and unenforceable the judgment of court if the substantial suit goes in their favour.