A Federal High Court in Abuja has restored Senator Ifeanyi Godwin Ararume as non-Executive Chairman of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
Recall that the former Senator had filed a suit before the court to void his sack by President Muhammadu Buhari January 17, 2023.
In a judgement on Tuesday, Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo voided Ararume’s sack and declared that the action of the President was arbitrary, unlawful and illegal.
The presiding judge also awarded N5bn against Buhari and the NNPCL and ordered that the money to be paid to Ararume as damages for the wrongful sack and disruption of his appointment.
Justice Ekwo also ordered that Ararume be immediately restored to office as a non-Executive Chairman of the NNPCL, and declared as null and void all decisions of the Board of Directors of the NNPCL carried out in the absence of Ararume.
The judge held that 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 Buhari before the Court praying it to declare his removal as NNPC Chief illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional and that it is a total breach of CAMA law under which NNPCL was incorporated.
