A Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday restored Senator Ifeanyi Godwin Ararume as non-Executive Chairman of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
The court voided the sack of the businessman and set aside his removal effected on 17th January 2023 by President Muhammadu Buhari on the ground that the action of the President was “arbitrary, unlawful and illegal”.
In his judgement, Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo awarded N5 billion against President Buhari and the NNPCL to be paid to Ararume as damages for the wrongful sack and disruption of his appointment.
Justice Ekwo ordered that Ararume be immediately restored to office as a non-Executive Chairman of the NNPCL.
The judge also declared as null and void all decisions of the Board of Directors of the NNPCL carried out in the absence of Ararume.
Justice Ekwo held that President Buhari acted ultra vires, wrongful, illegal, null and void in the ways and manners Ararume was sacked after using his name to register NNPCL and that such a brazen act cannot stand in the face of the law.
Ararume had dragged the President before the Court praying it to declare his removal as NNPC Chairman illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional, and that it is a total breach of Companies and Allied Matters Act under which NNPCL was incorporated.
Apart from asking the court to issue an order to return him to office, Ararume also demanded N100 billion as compensation for the damages he suffered nationally and internationally in the unlawful way and manner his removal was carried out by President Buhari.
