Contempt: Bank Asks Court to Jail DMO’s DG

Ecobank Nigeria Limited has accused the Director General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Mr. Abraham Nwankwo, for frustrating its move to recover a huge debt allegedly owed it by an oil marketing firm, First Deepwater Discovery Limited.

The bank’s lawyer, Mr. Kunle Ogunba (SAN), appeared on Tuesday before a Federal High Court in Lagos asking the court to imprison Nwankwo over alleged disobedience and contempt of court.

The bank also sued the DMO’s officer directly in charge of processing fuel subsidy claims by oil marketers, Mr. Umaru Abubakar, for contempt of court.

The DMO is the agency of the federal government which processes fuel subsidy claims by oil marketers or issuing them with what is called sovereign debt notes.

According to the court papers made available to THISDAY, Ecobank had on February 25, 2015, secured an interim order of Justice Mohammed Yunusa directing DMO to transfer the outstanding fuel subsidy sum due to Deepwater Discovery Limited into the company’s account with Ecobank.

The bank had claimed that Deepwater Discovery Limited had a cumulative fuel subsidy claim of about N1.8billion with DMO, out of which it claimed that N845million plus was due for payment.

Yunusa had in the said order directed DMO to transfer with dispatch the sum of N845million plus due to Deepwater into its account with Ecobank to offset part of the alleged debt the oil marketing firm allegedly owed the bank.

The judge had also directed DMO to “communicate the PEF/ Admin Charges on the balance sum of N1,020, 451,733.22 to the plaintiff/applicant via the receiver/manager and to pay forthwith, remit or otherwise transfer the entire sum to the first defendant’s account with the plaintiff/applicant.”

But Ogunba claimed that though the agency, through its principal officers, were served with the enroled order of the court since February 27, 2015, they had yet to take the necessary steps to transfer the said funds, thereby frustrating the bank’s effort at recovering its customers’ savings allegedly held by Deepwater.

In the affidavit filed in support of Forms 48 and 49, which Ogunba said were already served on Nwankwo and Abubakar, the deponent, one Ajibola Ajiboye, alleged that in spite of serving the alleged contemnors with the papers for contempt proceedings they had refused to bother.

While urging Yunusa to take a decisive action and commit Nwankwo and Abubakar to jail, Ajiboye said: “Contempt of court, being a deliberate disobedience of a court order, is a serious offence, which every court should not allow to go unpunished.