Court orders billionaire Indimi’s Oriental Energy to pay daughters $43.51m

Nigerian billionaire businessman Muhammadu Indimi is making frantic efforts to prevent his company accounts from being debited after the Federal High Court ordered that his firm, Oriental Energy, pay his two daughters $43.51m.

The twin daughters – Ameena and Zara – sued the company in 2022 and 2024 after a dispute over $435.1m in dividends.

Ameena, a former managing director of the company, had claimed that she and her siblings, who owned a 5% stake each in the company, were deceived into relinquishing their shareholdings to their father, who now owns 99% of the company. Each child was left with 0.6% equity.

The two sisters said it was after this act that they were informed of the $435.1m dividends in 2016.

Ameena and Zara argued that they are entitled to a combined 10% of the dividends, which is approximately $43.51m.

However, Oriental Energy denied the accusation and asked the court to dismiss the case. The oil company also denied issuing dividends of $435.1m but refused to disclose how much in dividends was declared.

Oriental Energy had also claimed that $10m was paid to all of Indimi’s children, including Ameena, who received only $3m.

In her judgment, Justice Evelyn Maha of the Federal High Court agreed with Indimi’s daughters that they were entitled to the sum, a major setback to the billionaire businessman.

Oriental Energy quickly filed a notice of appeal and sought to obtain a stay of execution so that the judgment would not be enforceable until final determination at the appellate court.

But while this was going on, the twin daughters on 13 February obtained a court injunction to enforce the judgment and debit Oriental Energy’s bank accounts.

The ‘garnishee order nisi’ obtained by Ameena and Zara is a preliminary court order that freezes a judgment debtor’s funds held by a bank and commands them to appear in court to show cause why those funds should not be used to satisfy a debt.

It is the first of two stages in garnishee proceedings, aiming to attach assets.

Documents seen by The Africa Report showed that the accounts targeted by the daughters include:

• Stanbic IBTC Bank
• Guaranty Trust Bank
• Access Bank
• Zenith Bank

However, Indimi swiftly got wind of the impending transactions and ordered his lawyers to speed up the appeals process.

Indimi is now set to gather a star-studded team of senior lawyers to pursue the appeal and save his company of $43.51m, insiders say.

The man, Indimi

Indimi is one of the wealthiest men in Nigeria and has 20 children, many of whom are married to the children of former heads of state, traditional rulers and other VIPs.

His company, Oriental Energy, which was founded in 1990, currently has three projects in the offshore Nigerian oil and gas industry, which include OML 115, Ebok Field (OML 67) and the Okwok Field (OML 67).

Of Mohammed Indimi’s 20 children, at least five currently serve on the board of the oil exploration and production company.

Last year, Oriental Energy inaugurated the $315m EMEM FPSO, a 30,000-40,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) capacity vessel designed for the Okwok field (OML 67) offshore Nigeria. It has a one-million-barrel storage capacity and aims for first oil in the coming months. (The Africa Report)