How Supreme Courtroom Dismantled Device of Oppression in Nestoil, Neconde vs FBN $1.3bn Litigation

In a serious transfer on Friday, the Supreme Courtroom of Nigeria struck down a deeply troubling litigation tactic that threatened the very basis of honest listening to in Nigeria’s justice system.

On the centre of the controversy was a rare and harmful proposition: {that a} plaintiff, having instituted an motion for debt restoration, may, via a receiver appointed at his personal occasion—additionally decide the authorized illustration of the defendant in that very same motion.

In impact, the plaintiff /claimant would management each the prosecution and the defence. That is the implication of the January 13, 2026 resolution of the Courtroom of Attraction by Justice Yargata Nimpar, Justice Polycarp Terna Kwahar, and Justice Danlami Zama Senchi.

By disqualifying the authorized counsels that have been correctly appointed by Neconde and Nestoil, and by recognising {that a} challenged receiver was the only real authority competent to nominate authorized counsel for the businesses in a dispute the place the appointment of the receiver was beneath judicial scrutiny, the Courtroom of Attraction erroneously struck on the coronary heart of Constitutional Proper to Honest Listening to enshrined in Part 36 of the Nigerian Structure. This was not merely a procedural irregularity; it was a elementary assault on justice.

The Supreme Courtroom particularly faulted the Courtroom of Attraction’s January 13, 2026 resolution, which had disqualified Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN and Dr Muiz Banire SAN that Neconde and Nestoil appointed as their counsel, and recognised the receiver as the only real authority competent to nominate counsel for the businesses.

Describing that place as misguided, the Supreme Courtroom held that the Courtroom of Attraction failed to understand the battle inherent in permitting a receiver, whose appointment was beneath judicial scrutiny, to manage the corporate’s authorized illustration.

In a unanimous judgement learn by Justice Mohammed Baba Idris, the five-member apex courtroom panel held that the place the legality of a receiver’s appointment was itself in dispute, such a receiver couldn’t assume the authority to nominate counsel to symbolize the corporate in the identical proceedings.

Justice Idris acknowledged that the questions submitted by the lenders earlier than the trial courtroom sought judicial interpretation on essential points, together with whether or not the lenders have been entitled to implement safety, appoint a receiver, and whether or not the receiver may lawfully train powers beneath that appointment.

Based on the Supreme Courtroom, these questions strike on the “very basis” of the receivership, moderately than referring to routine administration or realisation of belongings.

“It could event a battle of curiosity,” the courtroom held, “for a receiver appointed by events whose rights are being challenged to additionally decide the authorized illustration of the corporate in the identical proceedings.”

The apex courtroom emphasised that the receiver’s authority was derived from the very transaction beneath problem, making it improper for such a receiver to manage the corporate’s authorized defence in a go well with questioning that authority.

Authorized analysts, hailing the choice of the apex courtroom, concurred that an association beneath which a challenged/disputed receiver was allowed to manage an organization’s authorized defence, offended the core precept of adversarial litigation, the place every occasion was entitled to independently current its case via counsel of their very own selecting.

It is usually an assault on the constitutional proper to honest listening to beneath Part 36, which ensures each litigant the liberty to pick out authorized illustration with out interference.

The overturning of the misguided Courtroom of Attraction judgement by the Supreme Courtroom, in impact, quantities to a agency rejection of the notion that receivership could be weaponised to silence opposition or predetermine outcomes.

The apex courtroom’s stance makes it clear that no occasion—regardless of how strategically positioned—can applicable the authorized voice of its adversary.

The ruling restores a essential steadiness. It reaffirms that receivers, even the place validly appointed, can’t be used as devices of procedural domination, nor can statutory mechanisms override constitutional protections.

Extra importantly, it sends a strong message to litigants and decrease courts alike: the equipment of justice must not ever be manipulated right into a device of oppression.

In defending the independence of authorized illustration, the Supreme Courtroom has corrected a grave injustice.

A Historical past of Injustice ??:

On Thursday, November 27, 2025, at precisely 2pm, Justice Yargata Nimpar delivered a ‘ruling’.

The stated resolution got here on a Movement Ex-parte, which was allegedly not heard nor argued in open courtroom, but it surfaced, totally written, signed, stamped, and delivered as if it had lived a full life on the Courtroom of Attraction docket. Different members of the panel included Justice Polycarp Terna Kwahar.

The controversies over vast ranging ex-parte purposes, it might appear, has discovered its strategy to the Courtroom of Attraction, an intermediate courtroom with restricted unique jurisdiction as donated to it by statute.

Barely a number of weeks earlier, on the twenty second of October 2025, the identical plaintiffs (who later grew to become the appellants within the Courtroom of Attraction) had obtained from Justice Dehinde Dipeolu of the Federal Excessive Courtroom, Lagos, unprecedented far reaching Ex parte Orders and Mareva Injunctions towards Nestoil and Neconde. No alternative was given to the businesses to be heard or to defend themselves. The order was procured behind their backs.

The plaintiffs have been primarily claiming an alleged debt towards the defendants. The principle reduction sought by the plaintiffs was the propriety or in any other case of appointing a receiver over the belongings of the defendants. The defendants instructed totally different counsel to symbolize them. Muiz Banire, SAN, was briefed to symbolize Nestoil Restricted, whereas the agency of Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, was briefed to symbolize Neconde Restricted. Chino Obiagwu, SAN, and the legislation agency of Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, have been briefed to symbolize two of the administrators, who have been additionally sued within the motion.

As anticipated, the defendants, towards whom the ex parte orders had been obtained, challenged these orders.

The irregularities and excessive nature of the ex parte orders and mareva injunctions granted in favour of the plaintiffs ultimately culminated within the switch of the go well with from Justice Dipeolu to a different decide of the Federal Excessive Courtroom.

In a serious authorized victory for Nestoil Restricted and Neconde, the Federal Excessive Courtroom on Thursday November 20, 2025 vacated the mareva injunction that had been granted by Justice Dipeolu and in addition declared that the disputed ex parte order, which he granted, had lapsed and was not in impact following the expiration of the required 14 days, in accordance with the Federal Excessive Courtroom Guidelines.

The courtroom additionally ordered the events to take care of establishment and adjourned the Movement on Discover for listening to by the consent of the events.

On the listening to of the applying to put aside, two different legislation companies stated to be representing the receiver surfaced to contest the authorized illustration of Dr Muiz Banire chambers and that of Chief Wole Olanipekun. After listening to all sides, the trial decide merely recorded these two different legislation companies as representing the receiver, who was not a celebration to the motion, whereas Dr Muiz Banire, SAN, and Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, have been formally recorded as representing Nestoil Restricted and Neconde Restricted, respectively. The go well with was thereafter adjourned for particular listening to of the substantive software beneath an accelerated listening to regime.

Regardless of the pending movement on the Federal Excessive Courtroom, the plaintiffs in some way filed an analogous software on the Courtroom of Attraction, which then granted an order ex-parte directing the decrease courtroom to not take any additional steps, together with figuring out the pending software earlier filed by the plaintiffs (now appellants).

‘A Case That By no means Existed — But Obtained Judgement ‘

The above title is from experiences culled from the Every day Instances Nigeria and Nigerian Harmony, which known as it the “Most Surprising Attraction Courtroom Judgement in Nigerian Historical past”.

When the Courtroom of Attraction’s official record for the day was launched, nothing appeared amiss. No controversial instances. No surprising hearings.

However someplace contained in the dusty chambers of forms, a file was already being ready and by 2pm, a judgement carrying the signatures of a complete Attraction Courtroom panel had surfaced — though it was alleged that none of them had appeared in open courtroom and the case itself had by no means been argued earlier than any Excessive Courtroom, making an appellate ruling legally inconceivable.

By night, whispers had became rumblings. Courtroom employees who dealt with the mysterious doc reported uncommon directions: No public sitting; No point out on the courtroom record; No entry to case filings; No digital report and No audio recording of proceedings. But an order was made retrospectively to undo a accomplished act! Which is one more impossibility in legislation, as a result of the ex parte order can’t restore what has been already executed.

“It was like coping with a ghost file,” one clerk stated. “It appeared from nowhere and disappeared into official archives as if it had all the time existed.”

This judgement, as soon as delivered, unfold like wildfire, with authorized students calling it “a constitutional impossibility.” Veterans stated that they had by no means seen something related for the reason that Seventies.

An software can solely be hinged upon a legitimate Discover of Attraction towards a choice of a decrease courtroom earlier than any software could be entertained on the Courtroom of Attraction.

It was alleged that no Discover of Attraction had been filed nor served on the respondents; no events had been invited to Settle Data and no Data of Attraction had been transmitted.

A Surprising Departure From Judicial Norms

The Lagos Courtroom of Attraction’s resolution to grant ex parte orders in FBN Quest & One other vs. Nestoil & Others surprised the authorized group, as Ex-parte rulings are meant for uncommon emergencies and are hardly exercised by appellate courts.

By appearing with out listening to each side, whereas the matter was already earlier than the Federal Excessive Courtroom, the Courtroom of Attraction undermined the precept of pure justice and distorted its personal position.

An Abuse of Ex Parte Orders?

Ex parte orders, by their very nature, are distinctive treatments. Nigerian courts have persistently held that such orders are to be granted solely in instances of actual urgency, the place giving discover to the opposing occasion would defeat the very function of the applying. In Kotoye v. Central {Bank} of Nigeria, the Supreme Courtroom made it abundantly clear that ex parte injunctions are short-term, uncommon, and should not be used to confer undue benefit on one occasion.

But, within the current case, the plaintiffs prolonged the observe of acquiring ex parte orders to the Courtroom of Attraction—an area the place such orders are just about exceptional within the absence of utmost and demonstrable urgency.

Upon eventual service of the Courtroom of Attraction ex parte orders obtained by the plaintiffs, FBN Quest and FBN Trustees, the defendants Neconde/Nestoil challenged the orders.

The plaintiffs/appellants had, previous to submitting the ex parte software on the Courtroom of Attraction, already filed a movement on discover for injunctions, signalling inter partes proceedings, on November 21, 2025, earlier than subsequently submitting an ex parte software on November 26, 2025, which was granted on November 27, 2025.

The purposes contesting the authorized representations of the defendants have been subsequently introduced by legislation companies briefed by the receiver appointed by the plaintiffs, who had instituted the motion and who had voluntarily stayed the proceedings on the trial courtroom.

Sensing that the listening to of their substantive software to put aside the recent ex parte orders was being truncated, the defendants approached the Supreme Courtroom to problem the grant of these Courtroom of Attraction ex parte orders and in addition prayed for his or her suspension. On the listening to of these purposes earlier than the apex courtroom, the plaintiffs introduced purposes difficult the authorized illustration for the defendants.

The Supreme Courtroom referred the events again to the Courtroom of Attraction for a willpower of the problem of authorized illustration, which was already pending earlier than that courtroom. That software was subsequently argued earlier than the Courtroom of Attraction, coincidentally earlier than the identical panel (apart from one member that recused himself) that had granted the ex parte orders, which was being challenged.

Whereas it was the competition of the plaintiffs/candidates {that a} receiver had allegedly been appointed over the defendants’ corporations and that the defendants not had any say within the affairs of the businesses, even past problems with administration, it was the competition of the defendant/respondents that, within the first place, the go well with was not a receivership motion, and, certainly, one of many substantive reliefs nonetheless pending earlier than the trial courtroom was the validity or in any other case of appointing a receiver, as sought by the plaintiffs themselves.

In its ruling, the Courtroom of Attraction utilized the final precept that when a receiver is appointed, the authority of the board of administrators ceases totally, and in impact held that the board of administrators couldn’t appoint legal professionals to defend the alleged debt declare towards them and will solely be represented by counsel appointed by the receiver, who himself was appointed on the occasion of the identical plaintiffs.

Graphically put, this suggests that the plaintiff, who instituted the motion for debt, via his personal legal professionals, would additionally, via his appointed receiver, decide the legal professionals who would defend the defendants in that very same motion.

A Disturbing Position By the Courtroom of Attraction

Whereas litigants could also be tempted to push the boundaries of advocacy, the courts stay the final word gatekeepers of justice. By accepting the plaintiffs’ place {that a} receiver—appointed at their very own occasion—may dictate authorized illustration for the defendants, the courtroom endorsed a state of affairs that offends each logic and equity. It’s a foundational precept of justice that no occasion ought to be a decide in its personal trigger. But, right here, the plaintiffs, via their appointed receiver, successfully sought to manage each side of the litigation.

This runs counter to the constitutional assure of honest listening to beneath Part 36 of the Nigerian Structure, which incorporates the precise of a celebration to decide on its personal authorized illustration.

The Constitutional Query

The central situation that was then introduced earlier than the Supreme Courtroom was each profound and far-reaching: can a litigant, straight or not directly, impose authorized illustration on its adversary? And may a statutory provision override the constitutionally assured proper to counsel?

The Supreme Courtroom’s reply, grounded in each legislation and customary sense, was a powerful no.

The correct to counsel just isn’t a procedural luxurious; it’s a elementary pillar of justice. To permit an opposing occasion—particularly one with vested pursuits—to dictate that illustration is to erode the adversarial system itself. It transforms litigation right into a charade, the place outcomes are pre-determined and opposition is merely symbolic.

Finally, the Supreme Courtroom pronouncement on Friday, April 10, 2026, units an necessary precedent—reasserting that justice in Nigeria can’t be ambushed, manipulated, or managed by one occasion on the expense of one other.

Wale Igbintade

Times Nigeria