The Siege on OML 42: Inside the Suspicious Legal Frenzy Targeting Nestoil and Neconde

 

Ex parte orders freeze billions in assets as oil firms fight to protect operations

 

A high-stakes battle threatening to upend Nigeria’s indigenous oil industry

 

On quiet days, OML 42 sleeps like a wounded giant in the swamps of the Niger Delta—its pipelines humming with the fading memory of roaring production, politics, and crude oil fortunes. But in recent weeks, the oilfield has become the epicentre of a legal hurricane so violent that it has shaken boardrooms from Lagos to London and rattled investor confidence in Nigeria’s fragile petroleum economy.

 

At the heart of the crisis sit Nestoil Limited, Neconde Energy, and an explosive mix of lenders, judges, regulators, lawyers, and petitioners—each tugging at an oil asset that once fed the national treasury with imperial abundance. What began as a routine debt-recovery move has spiralled into a sprawling legal war, punctuated by allegations of judicial overreach, suppressed facts, corporate asphyxiation, and fears of an orchestrated attempt to seize control of OML 42 through the courts.

 

What follows is the inside story of how sweeping ex parte orders froze billion-dollar assets, halted oil production, provoked foreign lenders, triggered judicial petitions, and raised the spectre of a catastrophic collapse with implications far beyond any courtroom.

 

 

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A Single Order That Shook the Oil Sector

 

It began quietly on October 20, 2025, when FBNQuest Merchant Bank and First Trustees filed an ex parte motion. By October 22, Justice Dehinde Dipeolu of the Federal High Court, Lagos, had granted one of the broadest Mareva injunctions in recent Nigerian corporate history.

 

The order froze all bank accounts, shares, and assets of Nestoil, Neconde, and related companies—effectively paralysing a multi-billion-dollar group with strategic footprints in engineering, oil services, and upstream petroleum.

 

The plaintiffs claimed the companies owed $1.01 billion and ₦430 billion. The defendants said the figures were unverified, inflated, and grossly misleading.

Yet without hearing from the companies, the court ordered a blanket freeze, sweeping through commercial banks like a harmattan storm and locking out executives and signatories overnight.

 

Even more controversially, the ex parte order empowered a receiver/manager, and allegedly authorised the Nigerian Navy and DSS to enforce the civil directives—a move critics say militarises what is essentially a commercial dispute.

 

For Neconde, operator of OML 42 with roughly 40,000 barrels per day, the effect was devastating:

production collapsed to zero.

 

 

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Neconde: “We Do Not Owe a Kobo.”

 

Shocked by the freeze, Neconde insisted it is not indebted under the syndicated loan that forms the basis of the plaintiffs’ claims:

 

It was neither borrower nor guarantor.

 

It already has an active winding-up proceeding (FHC/CP/1439/2025), which under CAMA 2020 protects it from fresh lawsuits or enforcement without leave of court.

 

Any order against it, therefore, is “null, void, and of no effect.”

 

 

Neconde accused the plaintiffs of:

 

Dragging it into a dispute that doesn’t concern it

 

Judicial overreach

 

Wrongful interference with third-party rights

 

Causing the shutdown of an oilfield critical to national revenue

 

 

 

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Foreign Lenders Enter the Battlefield

 

The crisis escalated dramatically when foreign lenders stormed the courtroom.

 

Glencore Energy UK Limited, Fidelity Bank, Mauritius Commercial Bank, and the Africa Finance Corporation—senior creditors behind a $640 million syndicated facility—warned that Justice Dipeolu’s orders threaten the very foundation of international financing for Nigeria’s indigenous oil sector.

 

Represented by Olufemi Oyewole, SAN, they argued:

 

The plaintiffs obtained the injunction by concealing the existence of the senior secured loan.

 

The Deed of Charge relied upon by the plaintiffs is subordinate to the lenders’ security documents.

 

Freezing Neconde’s accounts jeopardises repayment of their facility.

 

Nigeria risks massive reputational damage if court orders can override established security hierarchies.

 

 

Their intervention reframed the matter as a test of whether Nigeria is still a safe jurisdiction for international oil financing.

 

 

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Petitions to the Chief Judge—and an Embattled Judiciary

 

Then came the most explosive turn.

 

Petitions flooded the office of the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court and the National Judicial Council, accusing Justice Dipeolu of judicial excess. Among the allegations:

 

Issuing sweeping orders over assets whose ownership was unclear

 

Involving military agencies (Navy and DSS) in enforcement of civil orders

 

Freezing assets of Neconde despite ongoing winding-up proceedings

 

Allowing crude sales under a receivership arrangement in violation of the preservative nature of interim injunctions

 

 

On November 7, Justice Dipeolu admitted receiving the petitions and suspended further proceedings pending the Chief Judge’s directive on whether he should continue or recuse himself.

 

What started as routine debt recovery had now grown into an institutional crisis threatening judicial credibility.

 

 

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Nestoil and Neconde Fight Back

 

The companies responded with a strong counteroffensive.

 

They accused the plaintiffs of suppressing a critical fact:

a Common Terms Agreement executed in December 2022, under which the alleged debts were restructured with a fresh 10-year repayment plan.

 

Other key defence arguments:

 

FBNQuest allegedly refused to provide account statements for over three years, making the debt unverifiable.

 

The receiver appointed by the plaintiffs is allegedly not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, contrary to CAMA.

 

The sweeping order froze personal accounts of directors—an act they call illegal and vindictive.

 

Nestoil Tower, an iconic, immovable property in Victoria Island, was frozen unnecessarily, suggesting an attempt at strategic seizure.

 

 

The companies warned that the consequences of these actions are fatal:

 

OML 42 shutdown

 

Collapse of corporate operations

 

Interruption of contractual obligations with the Federal Government

 

Severe revenue losses to Nigeria

 

 

 

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A Dark Suspicion: Is Someone Trying to Seize OML 42?

 

In industry circles, a troubling theory has taken root:

that the entire legal drama may be a covert corporate raid designed to take over OML 42 through judicial means.

 

Fueling this suspicion:

 

The breadth of the ex parte orders

 

Attempted crude-sale authorisations

 

Military involvement

 

Disregard of winding-up protections

 

A sweeping receivership with overreaching powers

 

Complete paralysis of accounts and operations

 

 

Nigeria has seen similar corporate warfare before—where interim injunctions were weaponised for strategic acquisition. Whether true or not, the speculation reflects the deep mistrust that shadows high-value commercial disputes in the country.

 

 

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Why This Matters for Nigeria

 

OML 42 is not an ordinary asset.

In the 1970s, it produced nearly 250,000 barrels per day—one of Nigeria’s crown jewels.

 

Today, Nigeria’s struggling oil industry faces:

 

declining production

 

massive divestments

 

chronic vandalism

 

evaporating investment

 

 

A prolonged shutdown of OML 42 would be catastrophic.

Foreign lenders are watching. International oil financiers are watching. Indigenous operators are watching.

 

If a single ex parte order—delivered without hearing from affected companies—can halt a producing oilfield overnight, the message to global capital is chilling.

 

 

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A Nation on the Edge of a Precedent

 

The case now sits in a tense limbo, awaiting the Chief Judge’s directive on whether Justice Dipeolu will continue or step aside.

 

What happens next is critical.

 

For Nestoil and Neconde, it is a fight for survival.

 

For senior lenders, it is a defence of global financing principles.

 

For the judiciary, it is a test of integrity and restraint.

 

For Nigeria, it is a moment of reckoning.

 

 

Will the rule of law steady the ship—or will this become another cautionary tale in Nigeria’s turbulent oil industry?

 

For now, OML 42 lies quiet, its wells dormant, its pipelines still, a sleeping colossus held hostage by the uncertain rhythms of law, power, and ambition.