BFIGroup Corporation says it will file fresh contempt charges against UC RUSAL and some officials of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) for, again, defying the order of the Supreme Court on the ownership crisis in the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON), Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State.
President of BFIGroup, Rueben Jaja said on Saturday in a telephone chat with our reporter that the lead counsel for the corporation, Patrick Ikwueto, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has been instructed to immediately file Forms 48 and 49 at the Federal High Court, Abuja against the Russian firm and some BPE officials.
The contempt charge being contemplated by BFIGroup was a result of the decision by the Russian firm to deny a joint inspection team that visited the plant on Thursday access to the premises.
The visiting team was, on arrival at the plant in Ikot Abasi, denied access into the company by armed soldiers and other security operatives deployed by UC RUSAL, the Russian firm handed over the management and operatorship of the plant by BBPE in controversial circumstances since 2006.
President of BFIGroup, Rueben Jaja, and the company’s legal counsel, Patrick Ikwueto said the visiting team was shocked to find out on arrival a barricade of heavily armed soldiers and other security operatives blocking the entrance of the plant.
Jaja said the soldiers were given firm instructions by officials of UC RUSAL not to allow anybody to enter the plant till further notice.
“Everybody was not allowed entry for over five hours, despite the intervention of the Acting DG of BPE. The Russians said they were not aware of the visit. But we are aware of correspondences that showed they were duly informed. At the end, only our lawyer and one other official were allowed to go in along with the representatives of BPE officials to engaged with the Russians, who insisted they would not allow anybody to enter the plant to conduct any activity until they received direct instructions from their principals in Moscow,” Jaja told our reporter.
Jaja said the charged atmosphere as a result of the frustrating experience was brought under control when the Acting Director General of BPE, Ignatius Ayewoh, met with BFIGroup team and gave assurances that he was going to make contacts with higher authorities at the Presidency to know exactly the cause of the problem and the way forward.
On Thursday, Ayewoh led some officials of BPE along with representatives of other government agencies on a two-day inspection visit to ALSCON in compliance with the directive by the NCP to finally commence the enforcement of the July 6, 2012 order of the Supreme Court of the ownership of the $3.2bn aluminium smelter plant.
The team, led by Acting DG of BBPE, was made up of representatives of all the parties to the ALSCON transaction, including BFIGroup, the Nigerian-American consortium declared by NCP as the winner and preferred bidder for ALSCON in 2004; officials from the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Ministry of Justice, as well as their counterparts from the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development.
Counsel to BFIGroup, Patrick Ikwueto, SAN, told our reporter the visit was not about actually taking over the management and operation of the plant yet, but as part of the directive by the apex court to confirm the continued existence of ALSCON, in terms of its physical structures and buildings.
Ikwueto said despite being denied access into the plant, now that it was established that ALSCON still exists physically, BFIGroup would move to activate the payment plan as ordered by the Supreme Court.
The payment plan, he said, would include a process where a joint technical team would visit ALSCON to carry out a comprehensive assessment of the state of its component units.
Jaja said the resistance against the visiting team was orchestrated by one Ahmed Abdulkadri, said to be a representative of some shadowy interests in BPE working with the Russians to frustrate the process to implement the Supreme Order.
Obstruction of the implementation and enforcement of the order of the Supreme Court is viewed as a serious contemptuous offence under the Civil Process Act, Cap. 551, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and the Judgment Enforcement Rules.
To file for contempt, Form 48 is usually filed to notify the respondents about the commencement of contempt proceedings against them.
Where the respondents fail to comply with the court order served on them within 24 hours, the process would be followed with the issuance of Form 49 for committal of the offenders to prison for contempt.
Background
On July 6, 2012, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, gave an order of specific performance for BPE to rescind its controversial cancellation of the NCP’s declaration of BFIGroup as the winner and preferred bidder for ALSCON.
But the refusal of BPE to comply with the order resulted in the initiation of contempt proceedings in April 2019 against it and then Director General, Alex Okoh.
The contempt proceedings continued till December 17, 2019, when the Federal High Court, Abuja presided by Justice Anwuri Chikere ruled that Okoh be sent to jail for his serial refusal to cause BPE to fully execute the various court orders regarding the illegal cancellation of the bid for ALSCON.
BPE’s appeal against the Appeal Court ruling was unanimously dismissed by the Supreme Court as “totally lacking in merit and therefore deserved to be dismissed.”
On January 26, 2024, Justice Tijjani Abubakar, on behalf of the five-member panel, not only dismissed BPE’s appeal, he also imposed a cost of N10m against BPE and Okoh, to be paid personally by Okoh in addition to going to prison for contempt.
The ruling was however reviewed by Justice D.U. Okorowo of the Federal High Court, Abuja to vary the judgment and allow Okoh to pay only the N10m fine without going to jail since he had already been removed from office.
The visit by the inspection team was the first move by NCP to commence the enforcement of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the sale of ALSCON since Okoh’s removal and conviction for contempt.
