Nigerian oil tycoon Abdulrahman Bashar's Abuja mansion is sealed over $40 million debt

Bailiffs moved on properties linked to Abdulrahman Musa Bashar in Lagos and Abuja on Wednesday, Sept. 23, enforcing Nigerian court orders obtained by a Dubai fuel supplier over a debt of about $40 million.

Bashar chairs the Rahamaniyya Group of Companies.

In Abuja, the enforcement team pasted the court order on the gate of a property on Panama Crescent in Maitama and sealed it. At his main residence on Logone Close in the same district, the team met resistance. More than a dozen vehicles were driven out of the compound along with a truck suspected of carrying property, men at the house broke the chain securing the gate and came close to damaging the gates themselves, and they threatened the lawyers, journalists and police officers present.

In Lagos, a security guard at Parkview Estate in Ikoyi refused to let the lawyers and bailiff in. They eventually got through but could not obtain keys to the apartment, and two of their seven escort vehicles were towed out of the compound.

The authority for all of it came from London. The Federal High Court in Lagos granted Petrichor Energy FZCO leave on Feb. 25 to register a judgment of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales for enforcement in Nigeria, and issued writs of attachment and sale on May 15 against assets linked to Bashar and, under a separate writ, to Bashar and Ultimate Oil & Gas FZCO.

What the money was for is fuel. Petrichor, formerly known as CE Energy DMCC, supplied Ultimate with parcels of gasoil and Jet A1 aviation fuel under five spot contracts before the two signed a term contract on April 25, 2023. Ultimate paid for the cargoes but fell behind on interest and demurrage, and Petrichor began arbitration at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre in November 2023. Two more cargoes went out under the term contract and were not paid for either.

The parties restructured in January 2024. Ultimate issued nine undated cheques signed by Bashar, and Bashar gave a personal guarantee covering the company's obligations, in exchange for further supply.

The cheques bounced. Petrichor presented seven of them on April 4, 2024 and they were returned two days later over irregular signatures. A criminal complaint followed, and Bashar was convicted in absentia and sentenced to a year in prison, a conviction later revoked at the request of both parties.

English courts then entered summary judgments in February 2025. Ultimate was ordered to pay 22.8 million dirhams and Bashar 122.1 million dirhams under his personal guarantee, plus interest and costs. A second payment agreement in April 2025 set out instalments, and the court found that Ultimate defaulted repeatedly despite extensions and partial payments.

The sums still outstanding are 120,089,582.69 dirhams and £94,025.56 against Bashar, about $32.7 million, and 27,491,540.66 dirhams and £63,859.28 against Ultimate, about $7.5 million.

A British judge froze his assets worldwide on March 30, covering Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and France. The order was granted after the court heard that Bashar had threatened during a conversation on March 15 to dispose of his assets if Petrichor did not accept the payment terms Ultimate was offering. "I consider that this does, indeed, provide direct evidence of a risk of dissipation," the judge said.

The court also took account of earlier findings of contempt in separate proceedings, and noted that Bashar had sold properties in the United Arab Emirates and Britain worth about $3.81 million and 13.42 million dirhams, roughly $3.66 million.

Enforcement is running in Dubai as well, before the DIFC courts under reference CFI 118/2025.

The Nigerian writs direct the sheriff to recover what is owed by attaching and selling goods and chattels belonging to the respondents, and by seizing specified monetary and financial assets.