A Federal Excessive Court docket in Abuja has lifted the authorized shields that had been defending 2 firms linked to billionaire Ernest Azudialu Obiejesi’s Nestoil Group from scrutiny by Nigeria’s anti-corruption company, Premium Instances reported on April 20, eradicating obstacles that had been in place since February.
The courtroom vacated ex parte orders it had granted on February 25 and March 2, 2026, which had barred the Financial and Monetary Crimes Fee from investigating Amaranta Oil and Fuel Improvement Restricted and Jonescreek Hydrocarbon Restricted. Each firms are linked to the Nestoil Group.
With the injunctions now discharged, the EFCC is free to open an investigation into the businesses if it decides to proceed. The courtroom adjourned the substantive go well with to Might 26, 2026.
What the businesses had been attempting to dam
Amaranta and Jonescreek had gone to courtroom looking for to halt potential EFCC investigations into their operations. Additionally they requested for orders restraining lenders to Nestoil and Neconde Vitality from petitioning or reporting alleged legal infractions to the fee, arguing that the issues concerned business disputes inside the upstream oil and fuel sector quite than legal conduct.
The courtroom had initially agreed, granting interim reliefs that lined the two firms. These injunctions additionally restrained a number of monetary establishments, together with FBN Quest Restricted, First Financial institution of Nigeria, Entry Financial institution and Zenith Financial institution, from petitioning the EFCC or facilitating its intervention. Court docket-appointed receiver/supervisor Abubakar Sulu-Gambari was equally restrained from taking motion that would draw within the anti-graft company.
Now these orders are gone.
The debt on the middle of all of it
The broader dispute is rooted in a debt restoration case involving greater than $1 billion and N430 billion allegedly owed by Nestoil, Neconde Vitality and their principal promoters. The lenders, looking for to get better what they’re owed, appointed Sulu-Gambari as receiver/supervisor over the businesses’ property.
That call triggered a authorized battle that has moved between courts. The Federal Excessive Court docket and the Court docket of Enchantment have issued conflicting rulings on the receivership. The appellate courtroom finally reinstated the receiver/supervisor and barred interference along with his mandate pending the decision of the enchantment, however litigation throughout a number of fronts has continued.
The lifting of the EFCC safety orders removes one layer of authorized insulation from the Nestoil-linked entities on the middle of the dispute.
Who Ernest Obiejesi is
Obiejesi, who turns 66 this month, is one among Nigeria’s most outstanding oil trade entrepreneurs. Born in Okija, Anambra State, he joined his father’s basic merchandise buying and selling enterprise as a youngster after the Nigerian Civil Warfare interrupted his education within the late Nineteen Sixties. He went on to earn a level in accountancy from the College of Benin, added an MBA from the identical establishment, and ultimately accomplished a programme at Harvard Enterprise Faculty.
In 1983, he based Obijackson West Africa Restricted, a buying and selling firm with places of work throughout Nigeria and in Cotonou. Eight years later, in 1991, he moved into oil and fuel with Nestoil, an engineering, procurement, development and commissioning firm that began with 10 workers and grew to over 3,000. Nestoil grew to become Nigeria’s largest indigenous EPCC agency, working with Shell and different worldwide operators. One in every of its greatest initiatives was co-constructing half of Shell’s $1.1 billion Nembe Trunk Line within the Niger Delta.
His flagship Lagos headquarters, Nestoil Tower, was the primary constructing in West Africa to obtain LEED customary certification. Past Nestoil, he constructed a portfolio that features Neconde Vitality, which holds a forty five% stake in OML 42 acquired for $585 million, Smile Communications Nigeria, and Nesto Aviation Companies. He additionally chairs the Obijackson Basis, a non-public charity targeted on training, healthcare and Igbo cultural heritage within the southeast.
This isn’t the primary time the EFCC has been within the image round Obiejesi’s enterprise affairs. The company beforehand confiscated his Ikoyi residence, and Nestoil was blacklisted by the Central Financial institution in 2012 after allegedly defaulting on a N13.5 billion ($85 million) mortgage obtained to construct the Nestoil Towers workplace advanced.
His spouse Nnenna Obiejesi, who studied on the College of Nigeria Nsukka and the London Faculty of Economics, serves as Group Government Director of Nestoil.
The Might 26 listening to on the substantive go well with would be the subsequent vital date in a case that now sits firmly again in contested territory.
