By Chinyere Aruogu
A Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos and presided over by Justice Mohammed Idris, had directed the operatives of the Directorate of State Security Services to bring to court on Friday, May 12, the detained Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Capital Oil and Gas, Limited, Ifeanyi Ubah.
It did on Tuesday, May 9 when hearing an application brought before the court to show cause why Ubah should not be granted freedom.
Justice Idris gave the order after entertaining an ex parte application from Ubah over what he described as an unlawful detention by the DSS.
Ubah through his counsel, Ifeoma Esom, had informed Justice Idris that Ubah has been in detention since May 6 without being charged.
The lawyer therefore prayed the court to direct the DSS to release Ubah so as to prevent the security agency from coercing him to accede to “whatever conditions they impose on him in exchange for his freedom.”
The DSS insists that Ubah is being detained over involvement in acts of economic sabotage and theft of petroleum products belonging to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) valued at N11billion.
Spokesperson of the DSS, Tony Opuiyo in Abuja had argued that Ubah allegedly stole, diverted and illegally sold petroleum products stored in his tank farm by the NNPC.
Opuiyo added that such acts impacted negatively on the national economy, and are nothing other than economic sabotage.
The DSS said: “In line with the statutory mandate of the DSS to investigate economic crimes of national security dimension, the Service, on May 5, 2017, arrested Ifeanyi Ubah, Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited.
“The arrest was sequel to Ubah’s engagement in acts of economic sabotage which include stealing, diversion and illegal sale of petroleum products stored in his tank farm by the Nigeria NNPC.
“So far, it has been established that the products stolen amount to over Eleven Billion Naira (N11bn).
“There is no doubt that Ubah’s acts have the capacity to negatively impact on national economy.”
But Ubah has objected to the DSS’s claim, saying that he was not given the opportunity to state his case with NNPC properly. For instance, he insists that Capital Oil and Gas Limited needed to carry out some account reconciliation to determine who is actually owing the other.