Nigeria's Supreme Court sets aside asset freeze on Ernest Azudialu's Nestoil and Neconde in $1.1 billion debt battle

Nigeria's Supreme Court has set aside an order by the Court of Appeal that had frozen the assets of Nestoil Limited and Neconde Energy Limited, the oil and gas companies controlled by billionaire Ernest Azudialu-Obiejesi, ruling on Monday that the appellate court exceeded its jurisdiction and misused the judicial process in granting the freeze.

A five-member panel of the apex court, in a judgment delivered in Abuja, held that the Court of Appeal went beyond its powers when it granted an ex parte application against Nestoil and Neconde Energy and their principal promoters, Azudialu-Obiejesi and his wife Nnenna Azudialu-Obiejesi. Justice Stephen Jonah Adah, who delivered the lead judgment, berated the appellate court for assuming jurisdiction and issuing an injunction when the matter was not properly before the court, and accused it of what he described as a misuse of the judicial process in also staying proceedings at the Federal High Court in Lagos.

The ruling means Neconde and Nestoil are now fully back in control of their own companies, pending the continuation of the underlying matter before the Federal High Court in Lagos, which remains unresolved.

The dispute that produced Monday's ruling is one of the most closely watched corporate battles in Nigeria's oil and gas sector. It stems from debt recovery proceedings brought by FBNQuest Merchant Bank and First Trustees against Nestoil and Neconde Energy over financing arrangements tied to oil assets and operations. The lenders allege that the companies and their promoters owe over $1.1 billion, with related naira liabilities of N430 billion, under a common terms agreement. Azudialu-Obiejesi has contested the basis and scale of the debt claim throughout the proceedings.

The sequence of events began in October 2025, when Justice Dehinde Dipeolu of the Federal High Court in Lagos granted an ex parte Mareva injunction freezing the companies' assets, bank accounts and shareholdings across more than 20 financial institutions. The order also authorised First Trustees and FBNQuest to appoint Abubakar Sulu-Gambari as receiver and manager over Nestoil and Neconde, effectively removing Azudialu-Obiejesi from operational control of the assets he built.

Nestoil and Neconde challenged the order, arguing that under the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules, an ex parte order automatically lapses after 14 days once a motion to discharge it is filed. In November 2025, Justice Daniel Osiagor agreed and held that the order had expired by operation of law. The lenders then went to the Court of Appeal, which on November 29, 2025 granted an interim restorative injunction returning control of Nestoil's assets to the receiver manager and simultaneously froze the companies' assets pending the substantive hearing. That was the appellate court order the Supreme Court has now struck down.

Monday's ruling does not resolve the underlying debt claim. The substantive dispute between Nestoil, Neconde and the lending institutions over the alleged $1.1 billion obligation will continue before the Federal High Court. The assets of the companies remain subject to the original proceedings. What the Supreme Court has done is remove the appellate court's freeze and receivership intervention, restoring Azudialu-Obiejesi's operational control while the case continues at the trial level.

Azudialu-Obiejesi, founder of the Nestoil Group, built one of Nigeria's largest indigenous oil services companies from his base in the Niger Delta. Nestoil provides pipeline engineering, construction and maintenance services to international oil companies operating in Nigeria, and has handled major contracts for Shell, Total, Chevron and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company. Neconde Energy, the group's exploration and production arm, operates the OML 42 oil block in the Niger Delta, one of the most significant independently held oil blocks in the country. Together, the companies represent several billion dollars in assets and thousands of direct and indirect jobs in the Nigerian oil sector.