Lis Pendens: How Oil Companies Spark Disputes in Nigeria: Energia Ltd and Ugboebili

Abstract

Fishing in troubled waters appears to be the specialty of oil companies in Niger delta, Nigeria. This study which adopts the doctrinal method is a two-pronged work that looks at the relationship between Energia Ltd, an oil company that got a farm out from Elf Petroleum Ltd as a Local Content vehicle on the Emu-Obodougwa marginal field and the host families of Umu-Ozegbe family of Ogume in an earlier study and Umu-Ugboebili family of Emu-Ebendo in this study. It confronts and interrogates the circumstances that led Energia Ltd into building two huge Palaces for the Okpala Uku and Ada of Emu-Ebendo community on a disputed land which Umu-Ugboebili had lost to Gabriel Mgbonyebi and Ossai Olikili families in Suit Nos. NWACC/11/2011; NWACC/40/2011; NWACC/41/2011 and DCCA/5A/2014; and which the Umu-Ugboebili has tried unsuccessfully to over-turn before the Court of Appeal, Benin-City and currently, Court of Appeal, Asaba in CA/B/374/2014. The study is conducted by looking closely at the facts pleaded by the parties in the cases and the decisions of the courts and the implication of the decisions on the ownership of the two magnificent palaces given the common law doctrine of lis pendens through the cases. The study finds that although Energia Ltd and Ebendo community were clearly aware that Umu-Ugboebili family lost the entire land on which the family resides currently by virtue of the showing of the Litigation Survey Plan No: BENO/DT/2012/DIS/004 they tendered before all the three courts, Energia Ltd still went ahead and acquired the lis pendens from Umu-Ugboebili family and Emu-Ebendo community to build the two Palaces on troubled waters. It finds that Energia Ltd and such other oil companies in the third world are fond of the attitude of not staring clear from disputed lands and investigating unimaginative claims of natives who have been empowered by oil money and are out to undermine competent court decisions and in the process, compound the commensality that predated them on the spaces. It was further found that such moves have threatened traditional institutions and produced unrepentant colonies of natives in communal agitation who are eager to win cases at first whistle by compromising the court of first instance but will not go far in the appeals because of the nature of facts they purvey and the strength of the evidence they ventilate and the caliber of legal representatives they engage. The study recommends that the community liaison offices of the companies be manned by non-natives without biases for their neigbohours with previous acrimonies; and owners of the land such palaces are built in error should occupy them.