UK Court Sentences Nigerian Oil Mogul To Jail
Justice Butcher of England and Wales High Court has sentenced Nigerian oil mogul, Abdulrahman Bashir to jail in the United Kingdom.
Bashir was also fined £500,000 while Adebowale Aderemi, its manager, was fined £10,000.
Abdulrahman, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Limited was handed a 10 months jail sentence after he was found guilty of breaching multiple court orders.
It was gathered that the sentence followed a pending suit instituted by Sahara Energy Resources Limited.
The basis of the sentence was that Bashir breached the order of Justice Robin Knowles and Justice Bryan of 6 September 2019.”
Justice Butcher further ordered Bashir to comply with requests for the release of 6,400.69 metric tonnes gas oil to Sahara Energy Resource Limited.
The Judge noted that the order was in line with the deal the trading arm of Rahamaniyya Oil in the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, Ultimate Oil and Gas entered into with Sahara Energy in 2018.
In the deal, Ultimate agreed to buy, and Sahara agreed to sell 15,000 metric tonnes in the Vacuum of Gas Oil, while a collateral Management Agreement (CMA) was entered into on July 8, 2018.
The agreement which contains a London arbitration clause was between the two parties and it was further learnt that Rahamaniyya agreed to store the gas oil at its terminal pending payment by Ultimate.
According to a report by Premium Times, Sahara delivered a total of 14,967.159 metric tonnes of gas oil to Rahamaniyya’s terminal in Nigeria and also issued invoices for the gas oil on October 26, 2018, for $10,760,728.77.
It was learnt that the payment should have been made by August 29, 2019, but Ultimate defaulted in making necessary payments.
However, there was an indication that the sentence could be reduced to six months if Bashir complies with the relevant order.