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Oil workers accuse Agip of defying court order

FOR ordering Arco staff to hand over to Plantgeria, and subsequently denying them access into the process area of the gas plants, the Nigeria Agip Oil Company has been accused of defying a subsisting court order.
Oil workers, member sof PENGASSAN. Photo: naij

Oil workers, member sof PENGASSAN. Photo: naij

FOR ordering Arco staff to hand over to Plantgeria, and subsequently denying them access into the process area of the gas plants, the Nigeria Agip Oil Company has been accused of defying a subsisting court order.

Arco Group Chairman of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Mr. Amadike Clinton, who lodged a complaint to the Port Harcourt branch of NUPENG and PENGASSAN, said Agip took the step on Tuesday, July 7, 2015.

According to Clinton, Arco’s staff face further threat of final eviction from the entire plant unless something urgent is done. “The Union,’ he said, “is aware that the court made an order on June 30, 2015 for all parties to maintain status quo.”

Clinton said it was shocking that Agip, an Italian company, could flagrantly disobey the order of a Nigerian court, even as he expressed concern that the firm’s ongoing actions at the gas plants in the Niger Delta could make nonsense of Nigeria’s judiciary in the near future.

The PENGASSAN chief said that allowing Agip to get away with its current actions could create a precedent for other oil majors to flout Nigerian laws and its justice system at will.

The suit, which was instituted by Arco Group against Agip, had on Tuesday, June 30, come up for hearing before Justice Lambo Akanbi at the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, where the court was to take addresses from the counsels on matter of jurisdiction of the court.

But the lead counsel to Arco Group, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), drew the attention of the court to the fact that counsel to Agip, Mr. Charles Ajuyah (SAN), had still not filed the mandatory memorandum of appearance and so urged the court to ask Agip’s counsel to comply with the rules of the court in that regard.

After exchange of arguments, the court asked counsel to Agip to file the mandatory memorandum of appearance before he could proceed with the issue of jurisdiction.

Olanipekun (SAN) requested the court to make an order in writing to advise parties in the suit to maintain the status quo. Counsel to Agip, Ajuyah, said that the order would not be necessary as Arco’s counsel had not exhibited any material to show their fear to warrant such an order.

“Nothing has been shown to the court that my client has done or is planning to do anything to affect the res,” he said. Justice Akanbi subsequently held that “the humble application of Chief Wole Olanipekun S.A.N for an order to maintain status quo is harmless. I do not see any party doing anything that is capable of prejudicing my position as to whether or not the court has jurisdiction. Consequently, parties are hereby ordered to maintain status quo.”

It is quite apparent from the letter by the Chairman of PENGASSAN, Arco branch that Agip has taken steps to sidetrack the decision of the court when on Tuesday, 7th July 2015, it ordered Arco’s staff to hand over to Plantgeria. Efforts to get the reaction of Charles Ajuyah (SAN), counsel to the firm proved unsuccessful as he failed to pick up his phone.

He did not also respond to the SMS sent to him as at press time. When his views were sought, a legal practitioner, Mr. Abiodun Olufowobi explained that it is a basic fact of the rule of law that parties to a dispute must obey any and all orders of the court. Party does not have the latitude to flout a court order brazenly or pick which of the court orders to obey.

According to Mr. Olufowobi, sometimes when the subject matter of dispute is capable of being spent, wasted or completed during the pendency of the matter, an aggrieved party may approach the court for an order that the subject matter of the dispute be preserved such that same is not completed or dissipated while the court is considering the suit before it.

He said that the courts usually preserve the subject matter of dispute otherwise known as res by granting interim applications by a party that the res should be preserved and further order that the parties maintain existing position of things as they were at the commencement of the action.

He said further that when a court grants such an order, it means that the court has instructed that the parties to the dispute to maintain the ‘status quo ante bellum’, a temporary restraining order defined by the court to mean “the state of affair before the beginning of hostilities.”

Mr. Olufowobi explained that no party to a dispute has the right to flout such order unless and until such was discharged by the same court or after a successful appeal. He concluded that the court has a duty to commit an individual for contempt of its orders when he deliberately fails to carry out such orders.

2 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

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  • Author’s gravatar

    Not the best week for the company, to put it mildly, but the law is the law. They might not be a Nigerian company but they must respect the Nigerian court.