Justice Olasumbo Goodluck of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Abuja has adjourned to 4th June 2014 for ruling on whether the court has jurisdiction to hear the N1.4 billion oil subsidy case involving Helyn Aninye, Chizobam Aniebonam and their company, Pon-specialised Services Limited.
The accused persons, who are alleged to have fraudulently obtained the sum from the Federal government as subsidy for the importation of premium motor spirit, popularly called petrol, are challenging the jurisdiction of the court to hear the matter.
The ruling, which was originally slated for Wednesday, has been moved to 4th June.
The accused persons had on 29th January 2014, through their counsel, Solomon Edoho who held brief for Nourisson Quaker (SAN), challenged the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the matter, claiming that it was a matter of admiralty, and that the Federal High Court had exclusive jurisdiction on matters of admiralty.
However, counsel to EFCC, Sir Steve Odiase told the court that it was not a matter of admiralty, as the product was out of the vessel and the vessel was no longer in the sea.
It would be recalled that the EFCC, after several attempts, finally arraigned the accused persons on Friday 31st May 2013.
They were said to have conspired to obtain the sum of N1, 413,507,951.50 from the Federal Government of Nigeria by falsely claiming that the sum represented subsidy accruing to Pon-Specialised Services Limited under the Petroleum Support Fund for the importation of 15,000 MT of Premium Motor Spirit.
One of the counts read: “That you, Helyn Aninye ‘F’, Chizobam Ben-Okafor ‘F’ and Pon-Specialised Services Limited on or about the 3rd day of March, 2011 at Abuja within the Jurisdiction of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, with intent to defraud, did obtain the sum of N1,413,507,951.50 from the Federal Government of Nigeria by falsely claiming that the sum represented subsidy accruing to Pon-Specialised Services Limited under the Petroleum Support Fund for the importation of 15,000MT of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) which Pon-Specialised Services Limited claimed to have purchased from Vitol SA Bourgase Bulgaria and imported into Nigeria through the MT Fulmer (Mother Vessel), MT Cape Bradley (1st Daughter Vessel ), MT Aidin (2nd Daughter Vessel) and MT Dani 1(3rd Daughter Vessel) which pretence you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 1(3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act No. 14 of 2006”.
