The Persecution of Ifeanyi Ubah by Kelechi Onyemaobi

Erudite Dan Amor, my friend and colleague, penned an article a while ago tilted: “Who is afraid of Ifeanyi Ubah?” Yes, who is afraid of Dr Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah, the enfant terrible of Nigerian political and socio-eco­nomic engineering?
Like millions of Nigerians, I had not met Ifeanyi Ubah before – until a short while ago. But his reputation as a business whiz kid and political mass mobilizer went everywhere before him.

Indeed, Ifeanyi Ubah loomed very large in the national con­sciousness, for good or for ill, dur­ing the 2015 general election when, with his Transformation Ambas­sadors of Nigeria (TAN), he almost single-handedly swung the tide in favour of then President Goodluck Jonathan – despite the fact that the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba political elite had already decreed the end of the Jonathan Presidency.
With President Muhammadu Buhari’s single-minded persecu­tion and prosecution of pro-Jona­than and other opposition elements since the inception of the present administration, it was obvious that, sooner or later, the establishment would come after Ifeanyi Ubah. And they have surely come…
In the last few months, Dr Ifeanyi Ubah, the Chairman of Capital Oil and Gas Industries Ltd., has been in and out of “invitations” by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the sale of petroleum products stored by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in his tank farm in Lagos.
Last weekend, the EFCC sent out a press release, circulated very widely in the media circles, an­nouncing that it had arrested Ifeanyi Ubah. The statement, is­sued by Tony Opuiyo, was titled: “DSS Arrests Ifeanyi Ubah over Economic Sabotage”.
The statement read in part: “In line with the statutory mandate of the Department of State Services (DSS) to investigate economic crimes of national security dimen­sion, the Service, on 5th May, 2017, arrested Ifeanyi UBAH, Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited.”
The statement said Ubah’s arrest was sequel to his “engagement in acts of economic sabotage” which included diversion and illegal sale of petroleum products stored in his tank farm by the NNPC – amount­ing to over N11 billion.
DSS also makes the strange al­legation that Ubah was inciting petrol tanker drivers to embark on strike actions. The statement said: “It is instructive to note that UBAH has further engaged in other ac­tivities inimical to national security and public order. In furtherance of his gimmicks to undermine the government and people of Nigeria, he has incited members of the Pe­troleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), a critical player in the downstream sub-sector of the Petroleum In­dustry, to refuse/stop the lifting of products. “
“This is part of his plans to curry their sentiments and cause them to embark on strike and also stage protests in his favour with the ul­terior motive of arm-twisting the NNPC to abandon the cause of recovering the … products. The implication of this on law and order is, in fact, a common knowledge. It is consequent upon this that the Service arrested and will prosecute him forthwith.”
Ubah has been incarcerated since then. But Capital Oil and Gas Industries Ltd., his organization, is not taking it lying down. The com­pany is striving, with strong justifi­cation, to affirm that the transaction with NNPC is a formal commercial transaction, which has gone into a dispute – but certainly not a crimi­nal enterprise.
In a statement it issued in Abuja on Monday, May 8, 2017, Capital Oil and Gas Industries Ltd accused the DSS of trying to criminalize a commercial dispute between it and the NNPC – with the arrest and de­tention of its Chairman, Dr Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah.
Capital Oil described Ubah’s de­tention as unlawful and a breach of his fundamental human rights. It lamented Dr Ubah’s ordeal in the hands of the DSS and the failure of the agency to honour the truce terms it entered with Ubah.
The statement read: “The incar­ceration of our Chairman by the DSS is unlawful, a disregard for the rule of law and a breach of Dr Ubah’s fundamental rights to lib­erty, freedom of movement and as­sociation.”
“A similar invitation was extend­ed to Dr Ubah on the 24th of March, 2017, which he honoured as a law-abiding citizen only to be detained in DSS offices in Abuja for almost a month. During that period, a fun­damental rights enforcement ap­plication was brought on behalf of Dr Ubah at the Federal High Court, Lagos… Although an order was made for his production in court in that action, rather than obey the or­der, the DSS, using a combination of coercion and cajoling, constrained him to discontinue that action upon an understanding that he would be immediately released. He was not released until over two weeks after he had complied and completely discontinued that action”.
Interestingly, capital Oil and Gas Industries Ltd strongly asserted that the NNPC is owing it N16 billion – and adduced evidence to support its assertions by itemising and high­lighting the various transactions it had with the NNPC for which the corporation was yet to pay it the costs and charges amounting to N16 billion.
. Capital Oil gave a breakdown of NNPC’s indebtedness to it as fol­lows:
• $5,540,000 (N2.2 billion) – unpaid berthing fees for NNPC vessels that called at our jetty;
• $2,952,555 (N1 billion) – invoice for chartered vessels to carry out STS operations Lagos offshore to ferry product (PMS) to storage at the request of NNPC since 2015;
• N1.170 billion – amount owed to Capital Oil & Gas Indus­tries Limited for throughput ser­vices from March to October 2016;
• N3.146 billion – pay­ment made to NNPC for 26,820 million litres of PMS vide pro-for­ma invoice No. 53598 which is yet to be delivered to us;
• N2.0 billion – payment to NNPC in April to facilitate the release of the Managing Director and engender reconciliation which NNPC reneged on; and
• N6.266 billion – N0.80k and N0.40 Jetty Throughput charge on over seven billion litres dis­pensed for NNPC by Capital Oil.
In my humble opinion, after all the hurly-burly is done, and the DSS show of power abates, the signifi­cant issue to note in this commer­cial case of NNPC vs Capital Oil / Ifeanyi Ubah is that there are two claims on the table: NNPC claims that Capital Oil owes it N11 bil­lion; Capital Oil, on the other hand, claims that NNPC owes it N16 bil­lion.
In more civilized societies, that is, societies not governed by IMPU­NITY, the most reasonable course of action to take in this case would be for the two corporate entities, who had enjoyed a mutually ben­eficial business relationship over the years, to sit down together and determine who owes what to who – and when the balances would be squared off.
This would be a reasonable, fair and equitable course of action to take. But then, as someone said a while ago, in Nigeria – anything goes…
Which is sad. Very sad indeed.