Oil Theft Case: Former NBA President Blocks AGF’s Attempt to Drop Trafigura Charges

Joseph Daudu (SAN), a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, has requested that the Lagos State High Court in Ikeja deny the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Justice Minister Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) his request to end a high-profile oil theft trial involving the multinational oil trading giant Trafigura Beheer BV and Trafigura PTE Limited.
The complaint was filed under the Lagos State Criminal Code Law (Cap. C17, 2003), not the federal penal system, according to Daudu, who is representing the nominal complainant, Nadabo Energy Limited, in an appearance before Justice Mojisola Dada on Thursday.
Section 211(1) of the 1999 Constitution was broken, according to Daudu, who also stated that the notice of discontinuance sent by the AGF’s office was unlawful.

Since the prosecution started in Lagos State, he said, it is only the Attorney General of Lagos State’s jurisdiction and not the Federal Government’s.

Following a plea by Trafigura’s attorney requesting that the Federal Government take up the case, it was reported that the AGF, working through the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), had filed a notice of discontinuance.

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Daudu, however, argued that the behavior was “ultra vires, null, void, and constitutionally defective.”

He argued, “This notice should be set aside because it is fundamentally flawed and cloaked in incompetence.”

The case, ID/7980c/2018, focuses on claims made by the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) that Trafigura and five other individuals misappropriated from Nadabo Energy about $8,442,806.09 worth of Automotive Gas Oil (AGO).

Osahon Asemota, Rembrandt Ltd., Jil Engineering and Oil Services Ltd., Yusuf Kwande, and Mettle Energy and Gas are among the other defendants.

Earlier, the defendants had entered not guilty pleas.

The trial had progressed considerably, and 17 witnesses had been called by the prosecution. Justice Dada dismissed the defense’s no-case statement and directed the defendants to present their case.

Trafigura’s legal team decided to request that the AGF end the case rather than continue with their defense, which led to the contentious notice of discontinuance.

The prosecution moved the notice, and the judge later released the accused.

The defendants had already been charged with similar crimes in a previous case before Justice Sedotan Ogunsanya, according to Bode Olanipekun (SAN), Trafigura’s lead attorney. He requested that the new case be dismissed on behalf of double jeopardy.
Judge Dada, however, rejected the application as without merit, ruling that there was no relationship between the two cases.

Daudu vehemently objected to Trafigura’s lawyer starting defense proceedings and calling three witnesses after multiple court rulings ordering the trial to begin. Trafigura’s lawyer then asked the AGF to take over the case.