A Chief Magistrate Court sitting in Port Harcourt has fixed Monday, February 7, 2022 for ruling on whether the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) and two of its key officials would be docked in a case involving contract irregularities.
The Nigeria LNG, its former Managing Director, Tony Attah, and General Counsel and Company Secretary, Akachukwu Nwokedi are being accused by one of its contractors, Macobarb International, of criminal culpability in irregularities relating to a contract awarded to the latter.
After counsels to both the plaintiffs, Macobarb International and its Managing Director, Shedrack Ogboru; and the respondents, Nigeria LNG, Tony Attah and Akachukwu Nwokedi, adopted their presentations, the Chief Magistrate, Blessing Vic-Jumbo adjourned the case to Monday, February 7, 2022 for ruling on whether the company and its accused officials would be docked or not.
The respondents were represented by their counsels, Bayo Adaralegbe, Valentine Igbonekwu, and Tochukwu Nwankwo from Babalakin & Co. Chambers, while the plaintiffs were represented by Morrison Uzoma and C. A. Jombo.
At the resumed hearing of the suit: PMC/1015/CS/2021, the respondents, through their preliminary objections filed on their behalf by a team of seven lawyers led by Olawale Akoni, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) leading another SAN, Tola Oshobi and five other senior lawyers from Babalakin and Co. Chambers objected to the allegations leveled against them.
They specifically stated that 1) the Chief Magistrate Court lacks jurisdiction to entertain the suit 2) the complaint before the court failed to disclose any probable cause or reasonable grounds to assume that a offence has been committed 3) the complaint on which the summons was predicated failed to satisfy the condition precedent as provided in the relevant sections of the Rivers State Administration of Criminal Justice Law 2015.
They further objected that 4) the plaintiffs’ complaints were only allegations of breach of contractual obligation and not an offence recognized under any substantive criminal legislation in Rivers State 5) Macobarb was making bogus claims and reporting NLNG to ten government agencies, which, realizing the futility of the company’s claims, stopped their investigation of NLNG; and 6) that since the Police has not investigated and pronounced NLNG to have committed a crime, the court was not competent to entertain the matter.
But in their counter, Macobarb International and its Managing Director, Shedrack Ogboru, through their counsels argued that the mere fact that NLNG, Tony Atah and Akachukwu Nwokedi misrepresented the contract terms to obtain materials of monetary value and turned round to deny the company payment was enough grounds for criminal liability.
They insisted that there was a prima facie case against the defendants and that the only process the court looks at in determining whether there is prima facie commission of an offence are the particulars of offence and not what the defendants say to the contrary as facts of the offence, stating that Macobarb, in fulfilment of its contractual obligation to NLNG, supplied imported turnstiles and vehicle barriers to the NLNG amongst other expensive items with certification by foreign experts engaged by NLNG as stipulated by the contract.
They further countered that it was criminal for the defendants to lead the contractor to believe that it was to be paid on milestones on ‘work done’ knowing full well that the contract was based on lump sum and would be paid at the end of contract execution, informing the court that this misrepresentation led them to access credit facilities in a bank to execute the job, only to be told by same NLNG and their principal officers that those terms no longer applied.
Macobarb and Ogboru explained to the court that because of the ‘misrepresentations’, the first demand for N32million and second demand of N33.5million for ‘work done’ were turned down, further informing that when the contractor insisted on being paid, the NLNG and the accused officers retracted their earlier representations and directed the complainants to first conclude the execution of the contract and get lump sum.
The duo disclosed to the court that it was in December 2020 during a virtual meeting that they (plaintiffs) became aware that they have been fraudulently induced by the defendants to supply varieties of items when they (respondents) made statements implying that the provisions of the contract signed between them (Macobarb and NLNG) no longer applied.
On the allegation of ‘reporting NLNG to ten government agencies’, Macobarb told the court that, consistent with its firm belief in conflict resolution and arbitration, it approached mediators but strangely the defendants who pledged during engagements with the arbitrators to go and resolve the matter continuously reneged on their assurances.
They said the single transaction implicated in the suit under review has both criminal and civil dimensions which can be heard concurrently in same or different courts, stressing that “the complainants complied with all the requisite conditions as set out in the enabling law for private criminal complaints. The preliminary objection was filed in bad faith just to unreasonably delay the prosecution of the trial”.
After the legal fireworks have subsided, the learned Chief Magistrate, Blessing Vic-Jumbo fixed Monday, February 7, 2022, to rule on the objections and counter objections and determine whether or not Tony Attah and Akachukwu Nwokedi, along with the NLNG would stand in the dock.
Every day for the thief,one day for the owner of the house,light must over shadow darkness.