Four herdsmen identified as Haruna Haruna, Hassan Abubakar, Husseni Musa and Mohammed Abubakar on Tuesday August 18, were tried in a Chief Magistrates’ Court in Makurdi on charges of acts of terror, criminal conspiracy and kidnapping.
Prosecution counsel Hyacinth Gbakor who disclosed that the case was transferred from the Area Command Headquarters, Otukpo for further investigation, revealed that a team of policemen who received intel on their whereabouts on July 8, arrested the defendants for bringing terror on the people of Benue South.
The defendants were accused of kidnapping one Charles Ochapa of Ado Local Government on May 16 and receiving a ransom of N400,000 before releasing him. They reportedy confessed to the crime and terror inflicted and N300,000 was recovered from them.
Chief Magistrate, Mr Isaac Ajim granted the defendants bail after they pleaded not guilty to the charges of acts of terror and subsequently adjourned the case until October 12, 2020 for further mention.
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Meanwhile, Herald.ng earlier reported that Abdulrahman Bashir, the Chief Executive Officer of Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Limited has been sentenced to jail in the United Kingdom.
The sentence was issued by Justice Butcher of the England and Wales High Court after the Nigerian oil mogul was found guilty of flouting multiple orders of the court in a pending suit instituted by Sahara Energy Resources Ltd.
Bashir who was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment, had been ordered to adhere with requests for the release of 6,400.69 metric tonnes gas oil to Sahara Energy Resource Ltd or its agent from Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Ltd, Jetty 6.436181, Ibafon, Kirikiri Waterfront, of Aero Maritime Street, Apapa, Lagos, Nigeria (“the Terminal”).
This was according to the deal Ultimate Oil and Gas, the trading arm of Rahamaniyya Oil in the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) entered into a deal with Sahara Energy in 2018.
In the signed agreement, Ultimate made a vow to purchase, and Sahara agreed to sell 15,000 metric tonnes in the Vacuum of Gas Oil.
A Collateral Management Agreement (CMA) containing a London arbitration clause was entered into on July 8, 2018 between the two parties.
However, it was gathered that Rahamaniyya agreed to store the gas oil at its terminal pending payment by Ultimate.
According to Nigerian newspaper, 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 USD 10,760,728.77.
The payment should have been made by August 29, 2019 but Ultimate differed in making necessary payments.
Court records revealed that some payments were made, in consequence of which some 8,566.469 metric tonnes of gas oil was released to Ultimate.
Ultimate, however defaulted in honouring the terms of the settlement agreement in full by making all the payments due.
After various warnings, on May 10, 2019, Sahara terminated the settlement agreement, notifying Ultimate that its agent, Asharami Synergy Plc would take delivery of part of the remaining gas oil from the terminal.
Various attempts made by Sahara to obtain delivery of the gas oil were futile, leading to the lawsuit which was filed both in Lagos and in the United Kingdom.
Justice Butcher who delivered the third order following a contempt of court judgement;
“The basis of the sentence was that Mr Bashir had committed continuing breaches of the order of Mr Justice Robin Knowles of 1 August 2019 and of the order of Mr Justice Bryan of 6 September 2019.”
However, there was an indication that the jail term could be reduced to half a year if Mr Bashir complies with the relevant order which had previously been breached. The oil mogul was also fined £500,000 while Adebowale Aderemi, its manager, got a fine of £10,000.