A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos State has thrown out a receivership suit against General Hydrocarbons Limited after determining that the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and its lawyers attempted to hide facts to obtain court orders against the former.
The court ruled that AMCON’s action constituted an abuse of court process and was commenced in violation of prior court orders.
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AMCON suffered the setback in its bid to recover an alleged $718m non-performing loan. AMCON had purchased the debt as part of its mandate of acquiring eligible non-performing loans from banks, but its aggressive pursuit of General Hydrocarbons through receivership was blocked by two separate judges.
Justice A. Aluko, in a ruling delivered on December 12, upheld a preliminary objection filed by Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, Chairman of General Hydrocarbons Limited, challenging the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the suit brought by AMCON’s appointed receiver, Mr. Seyi Akinwunmi.
The court found that Mr. Akinwunmi and his counsel, Bidemi Ademola-Bello, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, “deliberately suppressed facts in commencing this suit and securing the interim orders against General Hydrocarbons Limited and its assets.”
The judge noted that had the existence of prior orders been disclosed, “it would not have granted the interim orders of 24th October 2025.”
The case stemmed from a $718m debt dispute originally incurred by Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Nigeria Limited to First Bank of Nigeria Limited, which was subsequently purchased by AMCON as an eligible bank asset.
The debt pitted AMCON against General Hydrocarbons Limited and its chairman in a legal battle that resulted in multiple court proceedings in the last three months.
The controversy began on September 23, 2025, when Justice A. Lewis-Allagoa had granted ex-parte orders restraining AMCON and its agents from taking any steps against General Hydrocarbons or its assets.
The court had issued an order of interim injunction restraining the defendants “from taking any steps or continuing with any steps whatsoever to enforce any rights against the Applicant or its assets, including but not limited to freezing the accounts of the Applicants, its directors or shareholders, the appointment of a Receiver/Receiver Manager, Asset Manager, recovery agent e.t.c.”
Despite the orders, AMCON proceeded to appoint Akinwunmi as receiver over General Hydrocarbons on September 18, 2025, five days before the court’s injunction was formalised.
The situation escalated on October 22, 2025, when Justice Lewis-Allagoa directed that the interim orders made on September 23 would remain in effect until set aside.
Ademola-Bello, who was the counsel for AMCON and the purported receiver, “equally undertook to abide by the decision of this Honourable Court,” according to court records.
However, a day after on October 23, 2025, Mr. Ademola-Bello, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, commenced a fresh suit in the name of General Hydrocarbons Limited (described as being in receivership) and Mr. Seyi Akinwunmi against Nduka Obaigbena and two others.
The suit, numbered FHC/L/CS/2159/2025, was assigned to Justice Aluko and sought “to give judicial sanction to the 1st Defendant’s purported appointment of Seyi Akinwunmi Esq. as a receiver over the claimant.”
In her ruling on December 8, 2025, in the original suit before her, Justice Lewis-Allagoa found that the appearance of Mr. Oluseye Opasanya, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, at court proceedings on November 26, 2025, “purportedly being appointed by a receiver was an act carried out in violation of the valid and subsisting orders of this court made in this suit on 23rd September 2025 and re-affirmed during the proceedings of 22nd October 2025.”
The judge noted that the suit filed on October 23 was commenced “a month after this Honourable Court had granted orders to restrain the Defendants including the 1st Defendants from taking any steps or continuing with any steps whatsoever in relation to the appointment of a receiver over the claimant pending the hearing and determination of the motion on Notice and a day after Mr. Bidemi Ademola-Bello, S.A.N had given a personal undertaking to the Court.”
Justice Lewis-Allagoa’s ruling also addressed a conflict of interest issue, noting that Opasanya had previously represented AMCON in the matter. At a settlement meeting held at AMCON’s office on July 14, 2025, between General Hydrocarbons and the defendants, “Mr. Oluseye Opasanya S.A.N represented the 1st Defendant,” the court noted, adding that this fact remained “uncontroverted.”
The appointment of Mr. Opasanya and Mr. Kayode Adeluol, both Senior Advocates of Nigeria, as counsel for General Hydrocarbons by the purported receiver on November 14, 2025, was ruled “inappropriate and offends the Law” by Justice Lewis-Allagoa who maintained that Layonu remained the properly appointed counsel for the company.
Layonu had been engaged by a letter dated September 17, 2025, directed by Prince Nduka Obaigbena, and had prepared and filed all the original court processes in the matter.
In his December 12 ruling dismissing the suit filed by the purported receiver, Justice Aluko agreed that the action was “an abuse of court process because of the prior existence of Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1903/2025 – General Hydrocarbons Limited v. AMCON & 3 ors.”
The court noted that “Mr. Oluseyi Akinwunmi, having been appointed by AMCON, was an agent of AMCON, and thereby bound by the orders of Allagoa J. in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1903/2025 against AMCON.”
The judge examined the issue of subject matter and parties in both suits and “found them to be the same or very similar and did not see why there was a need to institute a fresh action over the same subject matter (by the same parties), when there already exists a prior substantive Suit in the same Court capable of addressing all the issues between the parties.”
Justice Aluko further noted that “the action by Seyi Akinwunmi and his counsel, Bidemi Ademola-Bello SAN was capable of impugning the credibility of the judicial process and was a clear waste of the Court’s time and resources which should be frowned upon.”
The court, therefore, dismissed the suit and set aside its interim orders made on October 24, 2025, which temporarily gave effect to the receivership over General Hydrocarbons.